Hebrews 12

1Therefore, since we also have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles, let us run with endurance the race set before us,

2fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer 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.

3For consider the one who endured such opposition from sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary, becoming discouraged in your souls.

4You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your struggle against sin,

5And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not regard lightly the Lord’s discipline, nor lose heart when you are reproved by him.”

6For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he scourges every son whom he receives.

7Endure for discipline; God is dealing 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 sharers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

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

10For they disciplined 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.

11All discipline seems for the present to be not joy but sorrow; yet later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

12Therefore, strengthen your drooping hands and your weakened knees,

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

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

15watching carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and through it many be defiled,

16that no one be sexually immoral or godless like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

17For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no opportunity for repentance, though he sought it with tears.

18For you have not come to what can be touched, and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and storm,

19and to the sound of a trumpet and to a voice of words, whose hearers begged that no further word be spoken to them.

20For they could not endure what was being commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it will be stoned.”

21And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am fearful and trembling.”

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

23and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in the heavens, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous people made perfect,

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

25See to it that you do not refuse the one who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, much less will we if we turn away from the one who warns from heaven.

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 heaven.”

27This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of the things being shaken—as things that have been made—so that the things not being shaken may remain.

28Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us have grace, through which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and awe,

29For our God is a consuming fire.