<P> John 7: 53--8: 11 in the New Revised Standard Version: </P> <P> Then each of them went home, while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives . Early in the morning he came again to the temple . All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them . The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery . Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women . Now what do you say?" They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him . Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground . When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her ." And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground . When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him . Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, sir ." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you . Go your way, and from now on do not sin again ." </P> <P> This episode, and its message of mercy and forgiveness balanced with a call to holy living, have endured in Christian thought . Both "let him who is without sin, cast the first stone" and "go, and sin no more" have found their way into common usage . The English idiomatic phrase to "cast the first stone" is derived from this passage . </P> <P> The passage has been taken as confirmation of Jesus' ability to write, otherwise only suggested by implication in the Gospels, but the word "εγραφεν" in John 8: 8 could mean "draw" as well as "write". </P>

Bible story about the woman caught in adultery