Jesus explicitly mentions the first stone. In fact, he emphasizes it as much as he can since he places it at the very end of his one-sentence intervention, prolonging its echo as long as possible, one might say, in the memory of his hearers: “Whoever is without sin among you, let him cast at her the first stone.” The modern reader, skeptical, suspects a purely rhetorical effect: the first stone is proverbial. Cast the stone, cast the first stone: this is one of those expressions that everyone repeats.
