Hebrews 12
1 Therefore we also, having such a great cloud of witnesses encompassing us, having put off every weight and the sin easily entangling, should run through perseverance the race lying before us,
2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of [our] faith, who in view of the joy lying before Him endured the cross, having despised [its] shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider fully the One having endured such great contradiction by sinners against Himself, so that you⁺ might not grow weary, fainting in your⁺ souls.
4 Not yet did you⁺ resist unto blood, struggling against sin,
5 and you⁺ have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you⁺ as to sons: “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint being reproved by Him.
6 For the Lord disciplines whom He loves, and He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 [It is] for discipline [that] you⁺ endure; God is treating you⁺ as sons; for what son [is there] whom [his] father does not discipline?
8 But if you⁺ are without discipline, of which they have all become partakers, then you⁺ are illegitimate children and not sons.
9 Furthermore indeed, we have had fathers of our flesh, discipliners, and we respected [them]; and will we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits and will live?
10 For indeed, for a few days according to that seeming good to them, they were disciplining [us]—but [He] for [our] benefitting, in order to share His holiness.
11 And all discipline indeed for the present does not seem to be of joy, but of grief; but afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those having been trained by it.
12 Therefore set straight again the drooping hands and the enfeebled knees,
13 and make straight paths for your⁺ feet, so that the lame should not be turned aside, but rather should be healed.
14 Pursue peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord,
15 overseeing, lest any be falling short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up should trouble [you], and by this the many might be defiled,
16 lest [there be] any sexually immoral person or profane person, as Esau, who for one meal sold his birthright.
17 For you⁺ know that even afterward, wanting to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, although having sought it out with tears.
18 For you⁺ have not come to [that] being touched and having been kindled with fire, and to darkness and to gloom and to storm,
19 and to the sound of a trumpet, and to a voice of sayings which those having heard begged [that] the word not be addressed to them,
20 for they could not bear that being commanded: “If even a beast should touch the mountain, it will be stoned.”
21 And the thing appearing was so fearful [that] Moses said, “I am greatly afraid and trembling.”
22 But you⁺ have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels,
23 and [to] the assembly, to the church of the firstborn having been enrolled in the heavens, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous having been perfected,
24 and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, speaking a better thing than that of Abel.
25 Watch out, lest you⁺ refuse the One speaking. For if they did not escape, having refused the One divinely warning [them] on earth, much less we, turning away from the One from the heavens,
26 whose voice shook the earth at that time; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once [more] I will shake not only the earth, but also heaven.”
27 And this, “Yet once [more],” makes evident the removing of the [things] being shaken, as having been made, so that the things not being shaken should remain.
28 Therefore, receiving an unshakable kingdom, we may have grace, by which we may serve God well pleasingly, with reverence and awe.
29 “For also, our God [is] a consuming fire.”