Matthew 5:29-30

5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into hell. 1  5:30 If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into hell.

Matthew 18:6

18:6 “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, 2  it would be better for him to have a huge millstone 3  hung around his neck and to be drowned in the open sea. 4 

Matthew 18:9

18:9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have 5  two eyes and be thrown into fiery hell. 6 

Matthew 26:24

26:24 The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had never been born.”

1 sn On this word here and in the following verse, see the note on the word hell in 5:22.

2 tn The Greek term σκανδαλίζω (skandalizw), translated here “causes to sin” can also be translated “offends” or “causes to stumble.”

3 tn Grk “the millstone of a donkey.” This refers to a large flat stone turned by a donkey in the process of grinding grain (BDAG 661 s.v. μύλος 2; L&N 7.68-69). The same term is used in the parallel account in Mark 9:42.

sn The punishment of drowning with a heavy weight attached is extremely gruesome and reflects Jesus’ views concerning those who cause others who believe in him to sin.

4 tn The term translated “open” here (πελάγει, pelagei) refers to the open sea as opposed to a stretch of water near a coastline (BDAG 794 s.v. πέλαγος). A similar English expression would be “the high seas.”

5 tn Grk “than having.”

6 tn Grk “the Gehenna of fire.”

sn See the note on the word hell in 5:22.