Hebrews 12
1 Ref 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 Ref looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Ref For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don't grow weary, fainting in your souls.
4 Ref You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin;
5 Ref and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, "My son, don't take lightly the chastening of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by him;
6 Ref For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, And scourges every son whom he receives."
7 Ref It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline?
8 Ref But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.
9 Ref Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?
10 Ref For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.
11 Ref All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby.
12 Ref Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,
13 Ref and make straight paths for your feet, so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
14 Ref Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord,
15 Ref looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled;
16 Ref lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, as Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal.
17 Ref 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 Ref For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, tempest,
19 Ref 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 Ref for they could not stand that which was commanded, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned{TR adds "or shot with an arrow" [see Exodus 19:12-13]};"
21 Ref and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, "I am terrified and trembling."
22 Ref But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels,
23 Ref to the general assembly and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 Ref to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.
25 Ref See that you don't refuse him who speaks. For if they didn't 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 Ref 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 Ref 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 Ref Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can't be shaken, let us have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,
