< Hebrews 12 >
1 Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and completer of the faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him who has endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you may not become tired and give up.
4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your struggle against sin;
5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with sons, "My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose heart when you are corrected by him.
6 For whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and punishes every son he accepts."
7 If you are enduring discipline, God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we paid them respect. Should we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they indeed, for a few days, disciplined us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.
11 All discipline seems for the moment painful, not joyful; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby.
12 Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,
13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
14 Pursue peace with everyone, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord,
15 looking carefully lest there be anyone who falls short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by it many become defiled;
16 that there be no sexually immoral or profane person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for one meal.
17 For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears.
18 For you have not come to something that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and darkness, gloom, and storm,
19 the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which those who heard it begged that not one more word should be spoken to them,
20 for they could not stand that which was commanded, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned;"
21 and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, "I am terrified and trembling."
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,
23 to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect,
24 to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.
25 See that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven,
26 whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens."
27 This phrase, "Yet once more," signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.
28 So since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, through which we may offer service pleasing to God, with reverence and awe,
29 for our God is a consuming fire.
