श्रेयान्द्रव्यमयाद्यज्ञाज्ज्ञानयज्ञः परन्तप।सर्वं कर्माखिलं पार्थ ज्ञाने परिसमाप्यते॥
śreyān dravya-mayād yajñāj jñāna-yajñaḥ parantapasarvaṃ karmākhilaṃ pārtha jñāne parisamāpyate
Word by word
The verse says
Better than any offering made of things is the offering of knowing, Arjuna. All action, without exception, comes to its end in knowing.
In plain words
The one ranking in the chapter, and it arrives after everything has been levelled.
Śreyān — better. The offering of knowing beats the offering of things.
And the reason: sarvaṁ karma akhilaṁ jñāne parisamāpyate — all action, entire, is completed in knowing.
Where you've felt this · with money
You can pay someone to do the job properly for thirty years. Or you can learn how it works. The first is not wrong and it has to be done again every year.
Going deeper
After six verses of refusing to rank practices, Krishna ranks. It is worth asking why here.
The distinction is not between good and bad practices. It is between offerings made of dravya — substance, stuff — and the offering that is knowing itself.
The argument is in the second half. Parisamāpyate — is completed, comes to its full end. Action does not stop at more action. It terminates in understanding.
So the ranking is structural rather than moral. Material offerings are real and they are instrumental; knowing is what they are instrumental toward. Preferring the destination to the road is not an insult to the road.
This also explains why the chapter opened with a lineage of teachers. If knowing is the terminus, then the transmission of knowing is the most important thing in the picture — which is what the next verse, the most practical in the chapter, is about.