Let us Kill her!

"There is no doubt that she should be stoned to death," he continued. "This is an abomination which the lord, our God, cannot tolerate. The wrath of God will fall on the entire community if we let her live among us."

Nabas waited for a response from his audience. The scene was the first century Israel. It was a group of people who had sworn to bring the Kingdom of God upon earth by eradicating evil from the face of the earth. Nabas was their leader. It was to a special group of women that their attention turned first—the ones who made a living with their body. They believed that such women had a key position in keeping the world in evil. Not only do they do sins, but also they lead others to sins. The presence of such women leads to the breakdown of family structure, and eventually, to the breakdown of the entire community.

They made a list of such women in the city of Jerusalem, and planned to catch them one by one, and stone them to death. They hoped that eventually, other cities would follow their example and kill all such women in the nation, which, they believed, would hasten the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth. They were all excited at the thought of participating in such a great campaign.

At the top of the list appeared the name of Mary. She was the most famous among them; perhaps, the most beautiful and enticing, too. She had very important political and religious figures among her regular customers.

"Let us kill her," said one of the men who listened to the speech of Nabas. "Let us kill her, let us kill her," the others echoed.

"I guess no one has a contrary opinion," Nabas said. "Now what remains to be decided is just the time and place. Since this is the beginning of a great and holy campaign, we need to do it at a holy place on a holy day."

Thus, they decided to stone her to death in front of their temple on the next Sabbath. Some of them were assigned to go to Mary's house the next Sabbath, and bring her to the temple.

Early in the morning, they brought her to the temple, hands and feet tied. After giving her to the charge of two strong men, Nabas took the others aside, and talked to them. "Listen," he said. "We are lucky. Jesus is here. If we can get him to cast stones at her, our campaign will get immediate support from the people. He is the most popular leader in our nation today." The men were happy to hear it. One of them hurried to look for Jesus. While the others were anxiously waiting, he came back and said, "He is over there. Why don't we take the woman there, and ask him to join us?"

Jesus was talking to a group of people including his disciples when the men approached him with the woman.

"Master," Nabas said. "Sorry for interrupting. But we need to talk to you about something very important and urgent." Then he began to tell Jesus everything about their campaign of eradicating sinners from the nation in order to hasten the establishment of the kingdom of God.

Listening to the words of Nabas, Jesus looked at the face of the woman. Then he looked at the face of each of the men in the group. Then he looked again at the face of Nabas and listened to him intently. The way Jesus looked had a special quality. It was as if he was looking directly into their hearts and their deepest motives. It was as if he had a third eye with which he could see what others could not see.

When Nabas finished talking, Jesus said, "Well, it is really a great idea. God does not want any more evil in the world. This woman deserves the condemnation of God."

The men were excited to hear it from Jesus. "Let us kill her, let us kill her," they roared.

"The one to cast the first stone," Jesus continued, "must be a sinless person-- one who hasn't committed any sins in all life. Only a sinless person has the right to punish a sinner."

Hearing that, they looked at one another. When Jesus bent over and touched the ground, they thought that Jesus was going to pick up a stone to cast at her. They were surprised when they saw that instead of picking up a stone, he was writing something there with his finger.

Impatiently, but with utmost curiosity, they tried to read it. It said: Someone can keep a shop open only if there are people to buy things from there.

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