12Hebrews 12

1Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,Select Hebrews 12:1

2looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.Select Hebrews 12:2

3For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls.Select Hebrews 12:3

4You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin;Select Hebrews 12:4

5and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;Select Hebrews 12:5

6For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.”Select Hebrews 12:6

7It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline?Select Hebrews 12:7

8But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children.Select Hebrews 12:8

9Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?Select Hebrews 12:9

10For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.Select Hebrews 12:10

11All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby.Select Hebrews 12:11

12Therefore lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,Select Hebrews 12:12

13and make straight paths for your feet, so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.Select Hebrews 12:13

14Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord,Select Hebrews 12:14

15looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and many be defiled by it;Select Hebrews 12:15

16lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal.Select Hebrews 12:16

17For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears.Select Hebrews 12:17

18For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,Select Hebrews 12:18

19the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which those who heard it begged that not one more word should be spoken to them,Select Hebrews 12:19

20for they could not stand that which was commanded, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned”;Select Hebrews 12:20

21and so fearful was the appearance that Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”Select Hebrews 12:21

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

23to the general assembly and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,Select Hebrews 12:23

24to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.Select Hebrews 12:24

25See that you don’t refuse him who speaks. For if they didn’t escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven,Select Hebrews 12:25

26whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.”Select Hebrews 12:26

27This phrase, “Yet once more”, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain.Select Hebrews 12:27

28Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can’t be shaken, let us have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,Select Hebrews 12:28

29for our God is a consuming fire.Select Hebrews 12:29