 1 Therefore, since we also are surrounded+ with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us, and let us run the race that is set before us with patience, 2 looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. He, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and He is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider Him who endured such contradictions of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. 4 You have not yet resisted to the point of blood in striving against sin. 5 You have forgotten the exhortation that speaks to you as to children: My child, do not despise the discipline+ of the Lord nor faint when you are rebuked by Him. Proverbs 3:11 6 For those the Lord loves, He chastens~ and He disciplines+ every child whom He receives. Proverbs 3:12 7 If you endure discipline+, God deals with you as His own children+. For who is the child whom the father does not discipline+? 8 But if you are without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then you are illegitimate+ children and not children of the Father. 9 Furthermore we have had fathers in the flesh who corrected us and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For indeed+ they chastened~ us for a few days as they think+ best. But He chastens for our own benefit+ so that we might be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now, no discipline+ for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby. 12 Therefore lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees. 13 Make straight paths for your feet, lest what is lame be turned out of the way. But rather, let it be healed. 14 Follow peace with all people, and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 Watch+ diligently lest anyone fail of the grace of God and lest any root of bitterness spring up and trouble you. For by that+ many become defiled. 16 Watch, lest there be any fornicator or worldly+ person like Esau who, for one serving+ of food+, sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. 18 For you have not come to the mountain being touched and burned with fire and blackness and darkness and storm+ 19 and sound of trumpet and voice of words at which those who heard it begged that the word not be spoken to them any more. 20 For they could not endure what was commanded. And if any beast touched that mountain, it was to be stoned or thrust through with a dart. Exodus 19:12,13 21 So terrible was the sight that Moses said: I fear and quake exceedingly. 22 But you have come to Mount Zion+, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels. 23 You have come to the general assembly and to the assembly+ of the firstborn who are registered+ in heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of righteous+ people made perfect~. 24 You have come to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant~ and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse the one who speaks to you. For if those who refused Jesus who spoke on Earth did not escape, then much more will we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from Heaven. 26 His voice then shook the Earth. But now He has promised, saying: Yet once more I will shake not only the Earth, but also Heaven. Haggai 2:6 27 And this yet once more signifies the removing of the things that shall be shaken apart so that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 We will receive a kingdom which cannot be moved. Therefore, let us have 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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