Помилование жены-грешницы

On the occasion of the Feast of Tabernacles, the Lord Jesus Christ was in Jerusalem and taught in the church. Many people surrounded Him. Suddenly there was a big noise. The scribes and Pharisees brought one woman to him, placed her in the middle of the meeting and said: “Teacher, this woman has been convicted of such a sin, for which Moses commanded us in the law to stone us. What do you say? The Pharisees wanted to tempt Jesus Christ. If He had said that he should stone her, then, in addition to the reproach of hardness of heart, He would have been accused before the Roman government of prejudging the authorities, since it granted itself the right to punish the guilty with death. Otherwise, He would have been accused before the Sanhedrin as an opponent of the law of Moses. Jesus, bending down, wrote with his finger on the ground, showing that he did not want to answer them. They considered this a sign of confusion on the part of Jesus Christ and all the more insistently demanded an answer to their question. Then the Lord, raising His head and fixing His searching, all-penetrating gaze on them, said: “He who is without sin among you, be the first to throw a stone at her.” After this, he bent down again and began to write on the ground. Hearing this and being convicted by their conscience, the accusers began to leave one by one, starting from the oldest to the last. Jesus, raising his head and not seeing anyone but the woman, said to her: “Woman! where are your accusers? Has no one judged you? - “Nobody, Lord!” - she answered. Jesus said to her: “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” In these wise words, the Lord separated the sin from the person committing it: he condemned the sin as a criminal act, and forgave the woman, seeing sincere repentance in her, under the condition of correction. Pardon for a sinner wife. Painting by Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov (1844–1927). Painted in 1888, Museum of Emperor Alexander III, now the State Russian Museum. You might be interested in: