The Greek adjective anendektos means impossible, inadmissible, or not able to be so. Occurring only once in the NT (Luke 17:1), it introduces Jesus' statement about offenses: 'It is impossible that no offenses will come, but woe to the one through whom they do come.'
Jesus uses anendektos with full realism: in a fallen world, offenses against the weak, the young in faith, and the vulnerable are inevitable. But inevitability does not remove culpability. This word refuses a fatalistic escape: 'it was bound to happen' does not excuse the one who causes stumbling. This has pastoral application for church leaders, parents, teachers, and anyone in a position of spiritual influence — being a cause of another's fall carries the heaviest divine accountability.