1. Therefore seeing that we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2. Looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3. For consider him who endured such opposition of sinners against himself, so that you do not become wearied and faint in your minds.
4. You have not yet resisted until bloodshed, striving against sin.
5. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to children, My son, do not despise the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by him:
6. For whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and scourges every son whom he receives.
7. If you endure discipline, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father does not discipline?
8. But if you are without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not sons.
9. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we showed them respect: shall we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?
10. For they truly for a few days disciplined us according to their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11. Now no discipline for the present seems to be joyful, but painful: nevertheless afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
12. Therefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
13. And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
14. Pursue peace with all men, and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord:
15. Looking diligently lest anyone falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up troubles you, and thereby many are defiled;
16. Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.
17. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.
18. For you have not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor to blackness, and darkness, and storm,
19. And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice those who heard pleaded that the word should not be spoken to them any more:
20. (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
21. And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I greatly fear and tremble:)
22. But you have come to mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23. To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24. And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.
25. See that you do not refuse him that speaks. For if they did not escape who refused him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven:
26. Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also heaven.
27. And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28. Therefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us hold fast to grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29. For our God is a consuming fire.
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