Hebrews 12

1Therefore, since we too have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us cast off every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race set before us.

2Fix our eyes on Jesus, pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of God's throne.

3For consider him who has patiently endured such antagonism from sinners against himself, so that you do not grow weary and faint in your souls.

4Striving against sin, you have not yet resisted to bloodshed.

5And you have forgotten the exhortation that speaks to you as to sons, "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline, nor grow faint when reproved by him."

6For whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he flogs every son whom he accepts.

7Endure for discipline. God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom a father does not discipline?

8But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partners, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

9Furthermore, we had fathers of our flesh as disciplinarians and revered them. Shall we not much more submit to the Father of spirits and live?

10For they indeed disciplined us for a few days as seemed good to them, but he for our benefit, that we might share in his holiness.

11Now all discipline seems for the present not joyful but sorrowful; yet afterward it bears peaceable fruit of righteousness for those trained through it.

12Therefore, straighten the drooping hands and the feeble knees.

13And make paths straight for your feet, so that the lame may not turn aside but rather be healed.

14Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.

15Watch diligently lest anyone fall short of God's grace, lest any root of bitterness spring up to cause trouble and many be defiled through it.

16lest any fornicator or godless person like Esau exist, who for one meal sold his own birthrights.

17For you know that even afterward, wanting to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, because he found no place for repentance, although with tears he sought it diligently.

18For you have not come to something that could be handled, something kindled with fire, gloom, darkness, and tempest.

19and a trumpet's sound and the voice of words, which those who heard begged that no word be added to them.

20For they could not bear what was commanded: "Even if a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned."

21And the appearance was so fearsome that Moses said, "I am terrified and quaking."

22But you have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels in festal gathering.

23and to the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect

24And to Jesus, mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than Abel.

25Take care not to refuse the one who speaks. For if those did not escape, having refused the one warning on earth, much more will we not escape, we who turn away from the one warning from the heavens.

26whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also heaven."

27But this "yet once more" indicates removal of what can be shaken, as of created things, so that what cannot be shaken may remain.

28Therefore, as we receive an unshakable kingdom, let us give thanks, through which we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe.

29For our God is a devouring fire.