ACV - Hebrews - 12

12:1  Therefore we also, having so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, having put off every weight and cleverly entangling sin, let us run by perseverance the contest being set before us.

12:2  Looking to Jesus the pathfinder and perfecter of the faith, who, against the joy set before him, endured a cross, having despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

12:3  For consider the man who endured such hostility against him by sinners, so that ye may not be weary in your souls, being disheartened.

12:4  Ye have not yet resisted as far as blood, struggling against sin.

12:5  And have ye forgotten the exhortation that reasons with you as with sons, My son, do not disparage the chastening of the Lord, nor become disheartened when punished by him?

12:6  For whom the Lord loves he chastens. And he whips every son whom he receives.

12:7  Because of chastening ye endure; God is treating you as with sons, for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

12:8  And if ye are without chastening, of which all have become participants, then ye are bastards, and not sons.

12:9  Besides, we indeed have had chastisers-the fathers of our flesh-and we were turned around. Shall we not much more be subordinate to the Father of the spirits, and we will live?

12:10  For those men indeed for a few days chastened us according to that which seemed good to them, but he for that which is advantageous, in order to be partakers of his holiness.

12:11  But of course no chastening for the present seems to be of joy but of sorrow, yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

12:12  Therefore lift up the drooping hands, and the feeble knees,

12:13  and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be turned away, but may be healed instead.

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

12:15  Looking carefully lest any man fall short, away from the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness sprouting up would cause trouble, and by this many may be defiled,

12:16  lest a fornicator or profane man like Esau, who, in place of one meal sold his birthright.

12:17  For ye also know that wanting afterward to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though having sought it with tears.

12:18  For ye have not come to a mountain being felt, and which burned with fire, and to darkness, and gloom, and a tempest,

12:19  and a sound of a trumpet, and a voice of words, of which those who heard begged that a word not be added to them.

12:20  For they did not bear that which was commanded, if even a beast should touch the mountain, it shall be stoned.

12:21  And so fearful was that which was made visible, that Moses said, I am terrified and trembling.

12:22  But ye have come to mount Zion, and to the city of a living God, a heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of agents,

12:23  to a festal gathering and assembly of firstborn sons who were enrolled in the heavens, and to God, a Judge of all, and to spirits of righteous men who were made fully perfect,

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

12:25  Watch, that ye not refuse him who speaks. For if those men did not escape, having refused him who spoke a divine message on earth, much more we, those who turn away from him from the heavens,

12:26  whose voice then shook the earth. But now he has promised, saying, Yet once, I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.

12:27  And the, Yet once, signifies the removal of the things being shaken-as of things that were made-so that the things not being shaken may remain.

12:28  Therefore, receiving an immovable kingdom, we may have grace, through which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and awe.

12:29  For our God is also a consuming fire.