If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to depart into hell.
Matthew 5:29 and 30
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What trips you up
The right eye and the right hand counted as your best eye and your best hand. Behind causes you to sin (offend in the King James Version) lies the Greek skandalon: the trigger stick in a trap. When an animal touches it, the trap snaps shut. For hell Jesus uses Gehenna, a valley near Jerusalem where children were once sacrificed.
Jesus doesn't mean this literally. But the image is deliberately shocking. Some things work like a trap in your life. Then cutting back a little won't help. Sometimes something has to go, even when it feels like losing a part of yourself.
Question for today
What keeps tripping me up, and what would it cost to get rid of it?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, you take my stumbling more seriously than I do. Help me say goodbye to what keeps bringing me down, even when it is dear to me. Amen.
My prayer
With your own thought · only on this deviceOne of the 491 words of Jesus on this site, from the temple to Revelation. See all the words in order →