Our text for the thought for September 2026 is the response of Jesus to the teachers of the law and the Pharisees who had brought a woman caught in the act of adultery and pressed Jesus with the question whether, according to the law of Moses, they should stone this woman to death.

Jesus had responded to this question of the Pharisees by refusing to answer this question, but when the teachers of the law and the Pharisees pressed him for an answer, Jesus responded with the answer in our text for the month. In response to these words of Jesus, the accusers of this women drifted away with shame, because they were made to face the fact that they were not without sin, and may be most of them may have been guilty of the sin of adultery.

How often people condemn others and despise them. Even believing Christians are guilty of this even though they have experienced the great forgiveness of God as they put their trust in Jesus as their Lord, God, Saviour and sin-bearer.

In this response of Jesus to the teachers of the law and the Pharisees Jesus makes clear that not one of us have the right to be condemning another person, and looking down on them and despising and judging them, because we are sinners also and depend on God's mercy alone for forgiveness.

In the light of this can we not appreciate the vileness of condemning other people. Even though we may be more moral than other people, we still have no right to condemn another person, because we depend on the mercy of God to forgive us and not to condemn us.