Jesus is teaching at the temple when scribes and Pharisees bring forward a woman they say has been caught in adultery. They place her in the middle of the group and publicly state the accusation.

They invoke the law of Moses and ask Jesus what should be done. The narrator explains that the question is intended as a test that might provide grounds for an accusation against him.

Jesus bends down and writes on the ground with his finger. The text does not say what he writes.

When the questioners continue pressing him, Jesus stands and tells the person among them who is without sin to be the first to throw a stone at her. He then bends down again.

One by one the accusers leave, beginning with the older ones. Eventually Jesus is left with the woman standing there.

Jesus asks where her accusers have gone and whether anyone has condemned her. She answers that no one has.

Jesus says that he does not condemn her either and tells her to go and sin no more.

The account holds mercy and moral seriousness together: the woman is not handed over to the public condemnation demanded by her accusers, but neither is the behavior at issue simply declared irrelevant.

For readers using the story as a historical or academic source, its textual history matters. The episode is ancient and deeply embedded in Christian tradition, but its absence from the earliest surviving manuscripts of John should be acknowledged rather than hidden.