Sanskrit
श्रेयान्द्रव्यमयाद्यज्ञाज्ज्ञानयज्ञः परन्तप । सर्वं कर्माखिलं पार्थ ज्ञाने परिसमाप्यते ॥
śreyān dravyamayād yajñāj jñāna-yajñaḥ parantapa sarvaṃ karmākhilaṃ pārtha jñāne parisamāpyate
Translation
Better than the sacrifice of any objects is the sacrifice of wisdom, O Parantapa. All actions in their entirety, O Pârtha, culminate in wisdom.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The turn the whole catalogue has been building toward: better than any sacrifice of material objects, dravyamaya yajña, is the sacrifice of wisdom, because all action without exception culminates in wisdom, jñāne parisamāpyate. This is the chapter’s thesis stated flatly — everything from verse 24’s cosmic oblation through verse 30’s breath-control was action, and action’s proper destination is jñāna. Chapter 3’s action and Chapter 2’s knowledge stop reading as alternatives at this point and start reading as stages of a single process, action feeding forward into the understanding that verse 39 onward will describe.