And if your eye offend you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: it is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
All Commentaries on Matthew 18:9 Go To Matthew 18
Theophylact of Ochrid
AD 1107
. Hand, foot, and eye understand to mean friends whom we rank as dear as our own members. And even though it may be these, our close friends, who harm us, we must disregard them as gangrenous members and cut them off, lest they harm others as well as themselves. From this it is clear that even if it is necessary that temptations come, that is, those who would harm us, it is not necessary that we be harmed. But if we shall do as the Lord has said, and cut off from ourselves those that would harm us even though they are our friends, we shall not be harmed.
