1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who endured such
hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in
your souls. 4 You have not yet
resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.
5 And you have forgotten the
exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:
“ My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
6 For whom the LORD
loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”[a]
7 If[b]
you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there
whom a father does not chasten? 8
But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you
are illegitimate and not sons. 9
Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid
them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father
of spirits and live? 10 For they
indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He
for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
11 Now no chastening seems to be
joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the
peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore strengthen the hands
which hang down, and the feeble knees, 13
and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be
dislocated, but rather be healed.
14 Pursue peace with all people,
and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord:
15 looking carefully lest anyone
fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause
trouble, and by this many become defiled;
16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who
for one morsel of food sold his birthright.
17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing,
he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it
diligently with tears.
18 For you have not come to the
mountain that[c]
may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness[d]
and tempest, 19 and the sound of a
trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that
the word should not be spoken to them anymore.
20 (For they could not endure what
was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be
stoned[e]
or shot with an arrow.”[f]
21 And so terrifying was the sight
that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”[g])
22 But you have come to Mount Zion
and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable
company of angels, 23 to the general
assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God
the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new
covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that
of Abel.
25 See that you do not refuse Him
who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much
more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from
heaven, 26 whose voice then shook
the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake[h]
not only the earth, but also heaven.”[i]
27 Now this, “Yet once more,”
indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that
are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Therefore, since we are receiving
a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may[j]
serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
29 For our God is a consuming
fire.