हतो वा प्राप्स्यसि स्वर्गं जित्वा वा भोक्ष्यसे महीम्।तस्मादुत्तिष्ठ कौन्तेय युद्धाय कृतनिश्चयः॥
hato vā prāpsyasi swargaṃ jitvā vā bhokṣyase mahīmtasmād uttiṣṭha kaunteya yuddhāya kṛta-niścayaḥ
Word by word
The verse says
Killed, you reach the higher worlds. Victorious, you enjoy the earth. So get up, son of Kunti, and fight - having made up your mind.
In plain words
The summing-up of the worldly case, and it is neatly built.
Die and you win. Live and you win. Either way the outcome is good.
Then: get up. The same command as verse 3, thirty-four verses later, with an argument behind it now.
Where you've felt this · in friendship
A dispute at work has been dragging on for a year and it could go either way. A friend sits down with you and talks through both endings - what your life looks like if you win, and what it looks like if you lose. Then he asks which one you could not survive, and the honest answer turns out to be neither. The knot was never about which way it went. It was about not being able to look at both.
Going deeper
This looks like a clean piece of reasoning, and it is worth noticing why the Gita cannot leave it there.
The structure is: both outcomes are good, therefore act. But that still makes the outcome the reason for acting. It is the same logic Arjuna was using in Chapter 1, run in the opposite direction - he computed the results and sat down, Krishna computes them and says stand up.
Ten verses later, at 2.47, Krishna will remove the entire basis of this argument. Results are not to be your motive at all.
So why say it? Because Arjuna cannot get to 2.47 from where he is sitting. He is a man who acts for reasons, and he needs a reason now. Krishna gives him one that works today and will be superseded.
The last phrase points forward: kṛta-niścayaḥ - having made a firm decision. Not because you now have good odds. Because you have settled. That word is the bridge to the next verse, where the outcomes stop mattering entirely.