It’s difficult to exaggerate how perfectly balanced this story of Jesus and the adulterous woman really is: a widely recognized man known for her sinfulness; a wildly judgmental crown of morally disgraceful people out to punish everyone - Jesus, his followers and anyone preferring sympathy to condemnation of the sinful woman; the furiously judgmental crowd whose anger comes to nothing; and the resolution that comes with Jesus’ act of forgiveness that doesn’t so much gloss over the sin as identify something more important - the forgiveness the empowers conversion.