“Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.”
And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. The drastic self-amputation teaching parallels the Sermon on the Mount's plucking-out-the-eye (Matthew 5:29): the hyperbolic command communicates the radical seriousness of removing whatever causes the stumbling. The better-crippled-in-life-than-whole-in-hell contrast is the kingdom's economy applied to the body: no physical wholeness is worth the cost of the soul's destruction.
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