Letter to the Hebrews (WEB)
12: 1Therefore 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, 12:2looking 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. 12:3For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don't grow weary, fainting in your souls. 12:4You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin; 12:5and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with sons,
"My son, don't take lightly the chastening of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by him;
12:6For whom the Lord loves, he chastens,
And scourges every son whom he receives."
12:7It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom
his father doesn't discipline? 12:8But if you are without discipline, whereof all have been made
partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not sons. 12:9Furthermore, 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? 12:10For 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. 12:11All 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. 12:12Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,
12:13and make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather
be healed. 12:14Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will
see the Lord, 12:15looking 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; 12:16lest there be
any sexually immoral person, or profane person, as Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal.
12:17For 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. 12:18For you have
not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness,
darkness, tempest, 12:19the 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, 12:20for they could not stand that which
was enjoined, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned;" 12:21and so fearful was
the appearance, that Moses said, "I am terrified and trembling." 12:22But you have come to Mount
Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of
angels, 12:23to 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, 12:24to Jesus, the mediator of a new
covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel. 12:25See 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, 12:26whose
voice shook the earth, then, but now he has promised, saying, "Yet once more will I shake not
only the earth, but also the heavens." 12:27This 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. 12:28Therefore, receiving a kingdom that can't be shaken, let us have grace,
whereby we may offer service well pleasing to God, with reverence and awe, 12:29for our God is a
consuming fire.