Hebrews 12

1verseTherefore let’s 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’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

2verselooking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3verseFor consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls.

4verseYou have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.

5verseYou 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;

6versefor whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7verseIt is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline?

8verseBut if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not children.

9verseFurthermore, 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?

10verseFor they indeed for a few days disciplined us as seemed good to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.

11verseAll 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 trained by it.

12verseTherefore lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,

13verseand make straight paths for your feet, so what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

14verseFollow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord,

15verselooking 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,

16verselest there be any sexually immoral person or profane person, like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal.

17verseFor 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.

18verseFor you have not come to a mountain that might be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,

19versethe 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,

20versefor they could not stand that which was commanded, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned”.

21verseSo fearful was the appearance that Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”

22verseBut you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,

23verseto the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,

24verseto Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.

25verseSee 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,

26versewhose 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.”

27verseThis 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.

28verseTherefore, receiving a Kingdom that can’t be shaken, let’s have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,

29versefor our God is a consuming fire.