Hebrews 12

1 Therefore, seeing we also are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

2 looking unto 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 set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 For consider Him that endured such contradiction from sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

4 In striving against sin, ye have not yet resisted unto bloodshed.

5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked by Him;

6 for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."

7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all arepartakers, then ye are bastards and not sons.

9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not far rather be in subjection unto the Father of Spirits, and live?

10 For verily they chastened us for a few days according to their own pleasure, but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.

11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto those who are exercised thereby.

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 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord,

15 looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness spring up to trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

17 For ye know how afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

18 For ye have not come unto the mount which might be touched and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest,

19 and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which voice those who heard entreated that the Word should not be spoken to them any more.

20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, that: "if even so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart."

21 And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, "I fear exceedingly and quake.")

22 But ye have come unto Mount Zion and unto 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 speaketh better things than that of Abel.

25 See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh, for if they escaped not who refused Him that spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh from Heaven,

26 whose voice then shook the earth. But now He hath promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven."

27 And these words, "yet once more," signifieth the removing of those things which can be shaken, such as 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 have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear.

29 For our God is a consuming fire.