Chapter 12
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with 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,
2Looking 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.
3For consider him
that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be
wearied and faint in your minds.
4Ye have not yet resisted unto blood,
striving against sin.
5And 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 of him:
6For whom the Lord
loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7If ye
endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom
the father chasteneth not?
8But if ye be without chastisement, whereof
all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
9Furthermore we
have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave
them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the
Father of spirits, and live?
10For they verily for a few days chastened
us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that
we might be partakers of his holiness.
11Now no chastening for
the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it
yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised
thereby.
12Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble
knees;
13And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame
be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
14Follow peace
with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
15Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root
of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
16Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who
for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
17For ye know how 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.
18For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that
burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
19And
the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that
heard intreated 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 touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a
dart:
21And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I
exceedingly fear and quake:)
22But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels,
23To the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits
of just men made perfect,
24And to Jesus the mediator of the new
covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than
that of Abel.
25See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if
they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall
not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh
from heaven:
26Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath
promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those
things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which
cannot be shaken may remain.
28Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which
cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with
reverence and godly fear:
29For our God is a consuming fire.
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