“Those who turn away from thee shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.” (Jeremiah 17:13)

In Sunday’s Gospel (John 8:1–12), Jesus writes on the ground in response to the Pharisees’ question of whether an adulterous woman should be stoned. Had he agreed, they would have accused him to the Romans for illegally promoting the Jews’ right to execute wrongdoers; had he refused, they would have charged him with disobedience to