Hebrews 12
1So then, since we are surrounded by such a massive cloud of witnesses, let us also strip off every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the contest set before us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy set before him endured a cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
3Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you do not grow weary and lose heart. 4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not think lightly of the Lord’s training, nor lose heart when you are corrected by him; 6for the Lord trains the one he loves, and he disciplines every son whom he receives.”
7Endure your trials as training; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom a father does not train? 8If you are left without the training in which all sons share, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9Furthermore, we had human fathers who trained us, and we respected them. Shall we not much more submit to the Father of spirits and live? 10For they trained us for a few days as seemed best to them, but he does so for our benefit, so that we may share in his holiness. 11For the moment, all training seems painful rather than joyful; but later it yields the peaceful fruit of justice to those who have been exercised by it.
12Therefore, strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees, 13and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be dislocated but rather healed. 14Pursue peace with everyone, and that consecration without which no one will see the Lord. 15See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no 'root of bitterness' springs up to cause trouble and defile the community; 16and that no one is sexually immoral or worldly like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. 17For you know that even afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no opportunity for a change of mind, even though he sought the blessing with tears.
18For you have not come to something that can be touched—to a blazing fire, to darkness, gloom, and storm, 19to the blast of a trumpet and a voice speaking words that made the hearers beg that not another letter be added to them. 20For they could not endure the command: “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21Indeed, so terrifying was the phenomenon that Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”
22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless angels in festal gathering, 23and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just who have been made perfect, 24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25See to it that you do not refuse the one who is speaking. For if those people did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we turn away from the one who warns from heaven? 26His voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” 27This phrase, “Once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. 28Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be grateful, and so offer to God pleasing worship with reverence and awe; 29for indeed, our God is a consuming fire.