Old Testament
Psalm 147:1-3
1 Praise the LORD, for it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant and fitting to praise him.
2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem. He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.
New Testament
John 8:1-11
1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 Now very early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him. He sat down and taught them.
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman taken in adultery. Having set her in the middle,
4 they told him, “Teacher, we found this woman in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now in our law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do you say about her?”
6 They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger.
7 But when they continued asking him, he looked up and said to them, “He who is without sin amongst you, let him throw the first stone at her.”
8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger.
9 They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last. Jesus was left alone with the woman where she was, in the middle.
10 Jesus, standing up, saw her and said, “Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?”
11 She said, “No one, Lord.” Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.”
“The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts … he heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147 does not rush. It lingers with the wounded, and it dares to say that repair is part of God’s work. The same psalm speaks of God counting the stars and calling them by name: no life is anonymous to him.
(We read this story with humility: it does not appear in the earliest Greek manuscripts of John, yet it has long been received as a likely authentic memory of Jesus.)
John tells of a woman dragged into the centre, used as an example, surrounded by accusation. Jesus refuses the crowd’s easy violence. He does not call evil good, yet he will not let a person be reduced to a public lesson. “Neither do I condemn you,” he says; “go, and from now on sin no more.” Dignity and truth are held together.
In youth justice, restoring dignity is not soft. It is insisting that the young person is more than their worst moment, and that victims are more than a statistic. Lord, teach us to seek justice that tells the truth, names harm plainly, and mercy that binds wounds without pretending they are small.