2Early in the morning he returned to the Temple where many people gathered around him and he sat down and taught them.
3The religious teachers and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught committing adultery and made her stand before everyone.
4They said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
5Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. What do you say?”
6They said this to try and trap Jesus so they could condemn him. But Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger.
7They kept on demanding an answer, so he stood up and told them, “Whichever one of you has never sinned may throw the first stone at her.”
8Then he bent down again and went on writing on the ground.
9When they heard this they began to leave, one by one, starting with the oldest until Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman still standing there.
10Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Where are they? Didn't anybody stay to condemn you?”
11“No one did, sir,” she replied. “I don't condemn you either,” Jesus told her. “Go, and don't sin anymore.”
12Jesus spoke again to the people, telling them, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me you won't walk in darkness for you will have the life-giving light.”
13The Pharisees replied, “You can't be your own witness! What you say doesn't prove anything!”
14“Even if I am my own witness, my testimony is true,” Jesus told them, “for I know where I came from and where I'm going. But you don't know where I came from or where I'm going.
15You judge in a typically human way, but I don't judge anyone.
16Even if I did judge, my judgment would be right because I am not doing this alone. The Father who sent me is with me.
17Your own law states that the testimony of two witnesses is valid.
18I am my own witness, and my other witness is my Father who sent me.”
19“Where is your father?” they asked him. “You don't know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me then you would know my Father as well.”
20Jesus explained this while he was teaching near the Temple treasury. Yet no one arrested him because his time had not yet come.
21Jesus told them again, “I'm leaving, and you'll search for me, but you'll die in your sin. You can't come where I'm going.”
22The Jews wondered out loud, “Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means when he says ‘You can't come where I'm going’?”
23Jesus told them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
24That is why I told you that you'll die in your sins. For if you don't trust in me, the ‘I am,’ you'll die in your sins.”
25Then they asked him, “Who are you?” “Exactly who I told you I was from the beginning,” Jesus replied.
26“There's much I could say about you, and much I could condemn. But the one who sent me tells the truth, and what I'm saying to you here in this world is what I heard from him.”
27They didn't understand that he was talking to them about the Father. So Jesus explained to them:
28“When you have lifted up the Son of man then you'll know that I am the ‘I am,’ and that I do nothing of myself, but only say what the Father taught me.