Exegesis:

ti estin eukopōteron ‘what is easier?’ The question answers itself: it is easier to say “Your sins are forgiven” because this statement is not susceptible of proof, while to say “Rise, take up your pallet and walk” would expose Jesus to ridicule should the paralytic not be able to obey the order. By proving he could do the harder Jesus proved he could do the (apparently) easier.

eukopōteron (10.25) ‘easier’: appears only in the comparative form in the New Testament (eukopos ‘easy’).

egeire (cf. 1.31) ‘rise,’ ‘get up.’

peripatei (5.42; 6.48, 49; 8.24; 11.27; 12.38; 16.12; used once figuratively of manner of life, 7.5) ‘walk,’ ‘go about.’

Translation:

Opposites such as ‘easy’ and ‘hard,’ ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ and ‘smooth’ and ‘rough,’ etc., may consist of words having contrastive meanings, or they may occur as positives and negatives. For example, in Tzotzil ‘easy’ is literally ‘not hard’ and in Yucateco ‘good’ is literally ‘not bad.’ Accordingly in this verse in Tzotzil one must say, ‘what is more not hard.’

Comparatives are expressed in a variety of ways, and hence this sentence must be recast to fit the syntactic and lexical requirements of the language into which one is translating, e.g. ‘shall I say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or shall I say, Rise…, which of the two is not hard’ (Southern Bobo Madaré). The reverse order is used in Central Tarahumara: ‘What manner is not hard? To say … or to say….’

Rise means ‘stand up,’ not as in one translation ‘to rise miraculously off the ground.’

Take up your pallet may be rendered in some cases as ‘roll up your mat’ (Tzeltal) or ‘pick up your stretcher.’

Walk does not imply here ‘to go home’ or ‘to leave,’ but to demonstrate the ability to walk, i.e. ‘to walk about.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .