LO - Hebrews - 12

12:1  Since, then, we have so great a cloud of witnesses placed before us, laying aside every incumbrance, and the sin which easily entangles us, let us run, with perseverance, the race set before us;

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

12:3  Consider him who, from sinners, endured such opposition against himself, lest, becoming discouraged in your minds, you grow weary;

12:4  you have not yet resisted to blood, struggling against this sin.

12:5  Besides, have you forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, "My son, do not think lightly of the Lord's chastisement, neither faint when you are rebuked by him:

12:6  for whom the Lord loves he chastises, and scourges every son whom he receives."

12:7  If you endure chastisement, God deals with you as his children. For what son is there whom his father does not chastise?

12:8  But if you be without chastisement, of which all sons are partakers, certainly you are bastards, and not sons.

12:9  Farther, we have had fathers of our flesh, who chastised us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of our spirits, and live?

12:10  For they, indeed, during a very few days, chastised us according to their pleasure; but he, for our advantage, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

12:11  Now, no chastisement, indeed, for the present, seems to be matter of joy, but of sorrow. Nevertheless, afterward it returns the peaceful fruit of righteousness to them who are trained by it.

12:12  Wherefore, bring to their right position, the arms that hang down, and the weakened knees.

12:13  And make smooth paths for your feet, that that which is lame, may not be put out of joint, but that it may rather be healed.

12:14  Pursue peace with all men, and holiness, without which, no one shall see the Lord:

12:15  carefully observing, lest any one come short of the favor of God; lest some bitter root springing up, trouble you, and by it many be polluted;

12:16  lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau; who, for one meal, gave away his birthrights.

12:17  And you know, that although afterward he wished to inherit the blessing, he was reprobated: for he found no scope for effecting a change, though he earnestly sought it with tears.

12:18  Now you are not come to a tangible mountain, which burned with fire; and to blackness, and to darkness, and to tempest,

12:19  and to the sound of a trumpet, and to the voice of words, the hearers of which earnestly entreated that a word more might not be addressed to them:

12:20  for they could not bear this threat, "Even if a beast touch the mountain, it shall shall be stoned."

12:21  And so terrible was the appearance, that Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and tremble."

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

12:23  to the general assembly and congregation of the first-born, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

12:24  and to Jesus the mediator of the new institution, and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaks better things than that of Abel.

12:25  Take care that you refuse not him who speaks: for if they did not escape, who refused him who spoke on earth, much more we shall not escape , who turn away from him that speaks from heaven:

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

12:27  Now this speech, "YET ONCE," signifies the removing of the things shaken, as of things which were constituted, that the things not shaken may remain.

12:28  Wherefore, we having received a kingdom not shaken, let us have gratitude, by which we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and religious fear.

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