12:1  Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race set before us,

12:2  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

12:3  For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

12:4  You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;

12:5  and you have forgotten the exhortation which God addresses you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN HE REPROVES YOU;

12:6  FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES."

12:7  For discipline you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son lives whom his father does not discipline?

12:8  But if you have no discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you seem more like illegitimate children and not sons.

12:9  Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather subject ourselves to the Father of spirits, and live?

12:10  For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.

12:11  All discipline for the moment seems not joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have endured training by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

12:12  Therefore, strengthen the hands that grow weak and the knees that grow feeble,

12:13  and make straight paths for your feet, so that the lame limb may not go out of joint, but rather receive healing.

12:14  Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

12:15  See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many suffer defilement;

12:16  that there should live no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

12:17  For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, God rejected him, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

12:18  For you have not come to a mountain that one can touch and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind,

12:19  19and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound resembled such that those who heard begged that God would speak no further word to them.

12:20  For they could not bear the command, "IF EVEN A BEAST TOUCHES THE MOUNTAIN, YOU WILL STONE IT."

12:21  And so terrible appeared the sight, that Moses said, "I FEEL FULL OF FEAR and trembling."

12:22  But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels,

12:23  to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who have received enrollment in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,

12:24  and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

12:25  See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.

12:26  And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, "YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN."

12:27  This expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can shake, as of created things, so that those things which cannot shake may remain.

12:28  Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot shake, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;

12:29  for our God resembles a consuming fire.