Then Jesus said to them: "Even you will all fall away from me to-night. Scripture says--'I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'
If your right eye is a snare to you, take it out and throw it away. It would be best for you to lose one part of your body, and not to have the whole of it thrown into the Pit.
Is not he the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters, too, living here among us?" This proved a hindrance to their believing in him;
Simeon gave them his blessing, and said to Mary, the child's mother: "This child is appointed to be the cause of the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign much spoken against--
The merely intellectual man rejects the teaching of the Spirit of God; for to him it is mere folly; he cannot grasp it, because it is to be understood only by spiritual insight.
and 'a stumbling-block, and a rock which shall prove a hindrance.' They stumble because they do not accept the Message. This was the fate destined for them.