Hebrews 12

¹Therefore, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us also run with endurance the race that is set before us,

²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the leader and finisher of our trust, who, because of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, thinking nothing of the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

³Yes, think carefully about him who has endured such opposition from sinners against himself, so that you do not grow weary, becoming exhausted in your souls.

⁴You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood while striving against sin.

⁵And have you completely forgotten the encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not lightly regard the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when you are reproved by him.”

⁶For whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and punishes every son whom he accepts as a son.

⁷It is for discipline and guidance that you must continue to endure. God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

⁸But if you are without that discipline—something all sons have shared in—then you are illegitimate children, and not sons.

⁹Furthermore, we had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we gave them reverence. Should we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits, and live?

¹⁰For they indeed disciplined us for a few days in ways that seemed good to them, but he disciplines us for our profit, so that we can be partakers of his holiness.

¹¹And indeed, all discipline seems at that present time to be not joyous but painful, yet afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

¹²Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the weak knees,

¹³and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb that is lame is not put out of joint but rather is healed.

¹⁴Diligently pursue peace with everyone, and pursue holiness—without which no one will see the Lord.

¹⁵Watch over others, so that no one is falling away from the grace of God; so that no root of bitterness sprouts up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;

¹⁶and so that there be no sexually immoral or worldly-minded person, like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

¹⁷For you know that even when he afterward wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no opportunity for his repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

¹⁸For you have not come to what can be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and storm,

¹⁹and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further word should be spoken to them,

²⁰for they could not bear what was commanded: if even an animal touches the mountain, it will be stoned.

²¹And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am terrified and trembling.

²²On the contrary, you have come to mount Zion, that is, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to an uncountable number of angels who are gathered for a festival;

²³and to the church of the firstborn ones whose names have been written in heaven; and to God, the Judge of all; and to the spirits of righteous people who have finished their race;

²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant; and to the sprinkled blood that is speaking better than the blood of Abel.

²⁵See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them from the earth, how much more will we not escape, we who turn away from him who warns from heaven.

²⁶At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I will make to tremble, not only the earth, but also the heavens.

²⁷And this word, yet once more, points to the removing of those things that can be shaken, that is, things that have been made, so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain.

²⁸Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, by which we may offer acceptable service to God with reverent submission and awe,

²⁹for indeed, our God is a consuming fire.