Mar 9:43 And if your hand offends you, cut it off:
Mar 9:43 And if your hand offends you, cut it off: it is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
Alternative: And if your hand trips you up, stop it. It is better for you to go through life crippled than having two hand depart onto the trash heap and the eternal funeral pyre.
Though a slightly difference vocabulary is used here than in Mat 18:8, it preserves the same the play on words, where "cutting it off" also means "stop it." While this sounds in translation like a pretty extreme, there is a lot more humor in the original Greek.
Putting this verse in the larger context of the topic of the chapter of contrasting the spiritual world and the temporal world, the point here is the total value of a temporal life. Our lives can be completely wasted by making the wrong decisions. The alternative of going through life without the capability of making certain mistakes is much preferable. Life is not measure by everything that we can do, but by the quality of what we do.
"Hand" is from cheir (cheir) which means "the hand and arm," and "with the help of agency of another." Like "hand" in English, it has a lot of meanings including "an act or deed," "a body of people," and the measurement "handful."
"Offend" is from skandalizô (skandalizo), which means "to cause to stumble," "to give offense," and "to scandalize."
"Cut off" is from apokoptô (apokopto), which means "cut off," "hew off," "exclude from reckoning," "cut short," "bring to an abrupt close," and "smite in the breast from mourning."
"Better" is from kalos (kalos), which means "beautiful," "good," "of fine quality," "noble," and "honorable." It is most often translated as "good" juxtaposed with "evil" in the New Testament, but the two ideas are closer to "wonderful" and "worthless," "noble" and "base."
"Enter into" is from eiserchomai (eiserchomai), which means both "to go into," "to come in," "to enter," "to enter an office," "to enter a charge," (as in court) and "to come into one's mind."
"Life" is from zoê (zoe), which means "living," "substance," "property," "existence," and, incidentally, "the scum on milk." It has the sense of how we say "make a living" to mean property. Homer used it more to mean the opposite of death.
"Maimed" is from kullos (kyllos) which means "club-footed," "deformed," "crooked," and "crippled."
"Go into" is from aperchomai (aperchomai), which means "to go away," and "to depart."
"Hell" is geenna (geenna) which is Greek for Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom (the Hebrew word), south of Jerusalem where trash, including diseased animals and human corpses was burned. A constant fires was kept burning there. This area was originally where children were sacrificed to Baal, and Baal (Beelzebub, "lord of the flies"), which is the name that Christ says others call him as the personification of evil.
"Fire" is from pur (pyr), which means "fire," "sacrificial fire," "funeral fire," "hearth-fire," "lightning," "the light of torches," and "heat of fever."
"Never shall be quenched" is from asbestos (asbestos), which means"unquenchable," and "inextinguishable."
