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 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 For consider him who has endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow
weary, fainting in your souls. 4 You have not yet resisted to blood,
striving against sin; 5 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 For whom the Lord loves, he chastens,
and scourges every son whom he receives.”*1
7 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 But
if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers,
then are you illegitimate, and not children. 9 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 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 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 Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the
feeble knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet,*2 so that which is
lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. 14 Follow after peace
with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord,
15 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 many be defiled
by it; 16 lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane
person, like Esau, who sold his 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 a mountain that
might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness,
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 shall be stoned*3 ;”*4 21 and so fearful was the appearance, that
Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”*5
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
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 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 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 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.”*6 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 Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can’t be shaken, let us have grace,
through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29 for our
God is a consuming fire.*7
1 Proverbs 3:11-12
2 Proverbs 4:26
3 TR adds “or shot with an arrow”
[see Exodus 19:12-13]
4 Exodus 19:12-13
5 Deuteronomy 9:19
6 Haggai 2:6
7 Deuteronomy 4:24
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