Mark 9:43-50
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna,[a] into the unquenchable fire. [44 ][b] 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. [46 ] 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, 48 where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’(A)
The Simile of Salt. 49 [c]“Everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.”(B)
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 9:43, 45, 47 Gehenna: see note on Mt 5:22.
- 9:44, 46 These verses, lacking in some important early manuscripts, are here omitted as scribal additions. They simply repeat Mk 9:48 itself a modified citation of Is 66:24.
- 9:49 Everyone will be salted with fire: so the better manuscripts. Some add “every sacrifice will be salted with salt.” The purifying and preservative use of salt in food (Lv 2:13) and the refinement effected through fire refer here to comparable effects in the spiritual life of the disciples of Jesus.
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