1. So therefore we also, having so great a cloud of witnesses lying around us, having laid aside every weight and the easily surrounding sin, through patience let us also run the race set before us,
2. looking to the Author and Finisher of our faith, Jesus, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, "and sat down at the right" of the throne of God. Psa. 110:1
3. For consider Him who had endured such gainsaying of sinners against Himself, that you do not grow weary, fainting in your souls.
4. You did not yet resist unto blood, wrestling against sin.
5. And you have forgotten the exhortation which He speaks with you, as with sons, "My sons, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint while being corrected by Him.
6. For whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and whips every son whom He receives." Prov. 3:11, 12
7. If you endure discipline, God is dealing with you as with sons; for who is the son whom a father does not discipline?
8. But if you are without discipline, of which all have become sharers, then you are bastards, and not sons.
9. Furthermore, indeed we have had fathers of our flesh as correctors, and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits, and we shall live?
10. For they truly disciplined us for a few days according to the thing seeming good to them; but He for our profit, in order for us to partake of His holiness.
11. And all discipline for the present indeed does not seem to be joyous, but grievous; but afterward it gives back peaceable fruit of righteousness to the ones having been exercised by it.
12. Because of this, "straighten the hands" hanging alongside, "and the enfeebled knees;"
13. "and make straight tracks for your feet," that the lame not be turned aside, but rather healed. Isa. 35:3; Prov. 4:26
14. Eagerly pursue peace and holiness with all, without which no one will see the Lord,
15. watching diligently that not any lack from the grace of God, that "no root of bitterness growing up" may crowd "in on you", and through this many be defiled; Deut. 29:18
16. that not any fornicator, or profane one, as Esau, who for one meal gave up his birthright;
17. for you know also that afterwards desiring to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, although seeking it out with tears. Gen. 27:36-39
18. For you have not drawn near to the mountain being touched, and having been lit with fire, and to gloom, and darkness, and tempest,
19. and to a sound of trumpet, and to a voice of words, which those hearing begged that not a word be added to them;
20. for they could not bear the thing enjoined: "Even" "if a beast" "touches the mountain, it will be stoned, or shot through" with a dart. Ex. 19:12, 13
21. And so fearful was the thing appearing, Moses said, "I am terrified and trembling." Deut. 9:19
22. But you have drawn near Mount Zion, even the city of the living God, to a heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels,
23. and to a gathering, an assembly of the first-born ones having been enrolled in Heaven; and to God the Judge of all, and to spirits of just ones who have been perfected;
24. and to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, and to blood of sprinkling speaking better things than that of Abel.
25. Watch that you do not refuse the One speaking; for if these did not escape, who refused Him who divinely warned them on earth, much rather we, those turning away from Heaven;
26. whose voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once" "I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens." Hag. 2:6
27. Now the words "Yet once" make clear the removal of the things being shaken, as having been made, so that the things not being shaken may remain.
28. For this reason, receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us have grace, by which we may serve God pleasingly, with reverence and awe;
29. for also, "Our God is a consuming fire." Deut. 4:24