Under the Old Covenant life was straight-forward but, except for those who realised what a good God Jehovah was and turned to him for help day by day, blessings and cursings came as a result of their own actions. If you did good you got good, if you did bad you got bad. And of course no-one could do good perfectly, so they were living in bondage and under fear of death at all times

Rom_3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one.

God was not dealing with them under the umbrella of grace as with their father Abraham but under law, because they boasted that they could do everthing that God said, despite their track record for failure in this regard!

Then Jesus came announcing the 'Good News of the Kingdom', showing people the grace of God and His love, but many refused to see what 'King David' for instance understood about our merciful and loving God. Their own traditions they felt should take precedence; plus the law!

There came a time when the Pharisees, attempting to trap Jesus, brought a woman caught in adultery before Him and asked Him what should be done about her.

This seemed to them to be a perfect trap! What could Jesus say? If He said they were to 'stone her' then He was not as gracious as He was making out and if He said 'let her go' then He was going against the law of Moses! A perfect trap!

But Jesus turned things on their heads and asked them to judge based on their own righteousness! He said to them "Whoever is without sin, you throw the first stone"! And Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground.

One by one the Pharisees went away, from the eldest to the youngest, and Jesus was left alone with the lady.

Jesus then said to her, "Has no-one condemned you"? When the lady said that no-one had, Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you, Go and sin no more!"

I can visualise the lady being overwhelmed at how events had turned out rushing back home to her family, resolved not to commit any sins from then onwards!

Twenty-four hours later when the enormity of keeping the 613 commands in the Law without any mistake struck home, she may well have asked herself the question, - "HOW"?

It's interesting that throughout the Old Covenant period including the time when Jesus was on the earth no-one was inspired by Holy Spirit to ask God directly, "How"! The Old Covenent is a covenant of 'self-effort' and people were left without full details of God's solution. They were to learn from this covenant that they needed 'outside help' because they could not save themselves!

Blessings came from keeping the law and the penalty for breaking even the smallest point in the law was death. As the Apostle James said...

James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

And the bad effects due to their sins could affect children to the third and fourth generations in their lineage, also.

Yet, no-one except Jesus kept the law blameless before Jesus was born and no-one kept it blameless afterwards either! So, if "Keeping the comandments" is the only criteria for eternal life in the kingdom of God then Jesus is going to very lonely indeed!

There was a very good reason why the question was not asked and we learn in the first book to the Corrinthians, Chapter 2, verse 8 why Holy Spirit waited untill after Jesus' death on our behalf to inspire that question and it's answer.

1 Corrinthians 2:7-10 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

If the principalities that rule this age had realised that salvation for mankind would come through the death of Jesus and that it was through believing on Him and accepting His sacrfice that we would have everlasting life they would not have killed Him. God kept that secret but now it can be revealed. Salvation is not through the law, we've seen that we cannot keep it; salvation is by grace through faith. Faith in Jesus.

That is why Jesus gave the woman caught in adultery the gift of "No Condemnation" first! When our sins are forgiven and we are not under condemnation we are freed to live lives pleasing to God and through Holy Spirit.

We couldn't do good and keep the law to be saved but God sent His Son Jesus to die for us. Now we live in Him and through Him. We can do nothing good ourselves, but we should always remember that "with God", that is "with Jehovah God", all things are possible. We know that without Jesus we can do nothing worth-while but the good thing is that we worship a 'good' God and we Christians are never without Jesus. He said that he would never leave us or forsake us.

What we have to do is believe on Him and let Him live that righteous life which only He can live, through us. That way we will keep Jesus' commands better than we ever could with all our own self-effort!