5:12 cut off. The verb “cut off” actually means “mutilate” or “castrate.” The insistence of the Judaizers that the Gentile Christians be circumcised so disturbed Paul that he compared it to the practice of castration that some worshipers of the pagan goddess followed. Also, with bitter irony he suggested that the Judaizers regress all the way into paganism instead of Judaism, if they were going to trouble these new Christians in this way.