In plain words
People without faith in this dharma, scorcher of foes, do not attain Me and keep turning on the path of saṃsāra, which is bound up with death.
Word for word
People without faith in this dharma, O scorcher of foes, not attaining Me, keep turning on the path of saṃsāra bound with death.
अश्रद्दधानाः पुरुषा धर्मस्यास्य परन्तपअप्राप्य मां निवर्तन्ते मृत्युसंसारवर्त्मनि
Other commentaries
The commentators
▸Bhagavadgītābhāṣyam
ये पुनः —
अश्रद्दधानाः श्रद्धाविरहिताः आत्मज्ञानस्य धर्मस्य अस्य स्वरूपे तत्फले च नास्तिकाः पापकारिणः, असुराणाम् उपनिषदं देहमात्रात्मदर्शनमेव प्रतिपन्नाः असुतृपः पापाः पुरुषाः अश्रद्दधानाः, परन्तप, अप्राप्य मां परमेश्वरम् , मत्प्राप्तौ नैव आशङ्का इति मत्प्राप्तिमार्गभेदभक्तिमात्रमपि अप्राप्य इत्यर्थः । निवर्तन्ते निश्चयेन वर्तन्ते ; क्व ? — मृत्युसंसारवर्त्मनि मृत्युयुक्तः संसारः मृत्युसंसारः तस्य वर्त्म नरकतिर्यगादिप्राप्तिमार्गः, तस्मिन्नेव वर्तन्ते इत्यर्थः ॥ ३ ॥
In plain words
Now, those on the other side —
'Faithless' means people who have no faith at all in what this teaching of Self-knowledge really is, or in what it actually yields — deniers, outright sinners, who have taken up the secret creed of demons: that the body alone is all there is to the self. People who live only to satisfy the body, sunk in wrongdoing — that is what 'faithless' means here, scorcher of the foe. Without reaching Me, the Supreme Lord — and since there is not the slightest doubt that anyone with real faith reaches Me — this means: without attaining even the smallest devotion, the first step on the path to Me. 'They return' simply means they stay, inevitably, exactly where they are. Where is that? On the path bound up with death, with this whole wheel of birth and dying — the road that leads to hell, to lower births, and worse. That is precisely where they remain.
Close to the Sanskrit
But those who —
'Aśraddadhānāḥ': devoid of faith in the essential nature and the fruit of this dharma, Self-knowledge — atheists, sinners, who have arrived at the secret teaching of the demons, namely the view that the Self is nothing but the body; who gratify only the body, sinful persons — such are the 'faithless'; O Parantapa, without attaining Me, the Supreme Lord — since there is not even the slightest doubt about attaining Me for one who has faith — this means without attaining even the mere devotion that is one variant of the path to attaining Me — this is the meaning. 'They return' means they abide with certainty; where? — 'on the path of death-bound transmigration': saṃsāra joined with death is 'death-saṃsāra'; its path is the way leading to hell, to animal births, and the like; they abide precisely there — this is the meaning.