Hebrews 12

1So then, since we too have so vast a cloud of witnesses all around us, let us strip off every burden, and the sin that wraps itself around us so readily, and let us run the race laid out ahead of us, and run it with endurance. 2Let us keep our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer who leads the way in faith and brings it to perfection. For the sake of the joy that lay ahead of him, he endured a cross and counted its shame as nothing, and he has taken his seat at the right hand of God’s throne.

3Weigh up what he endured: such hostility from sinners, who were really working against themselves. Then you will not wear out and let your spirits give way. 4Your fight against sin has not yet cost you your blood. 5And you have forgotten the encouraging word that speaks to you as children: “My son, do not shrug off the Lord’s discipline, and do not give way when he corrects you. 6Those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he brings the whip down on every son he takes as his own.” 7What you endure, you endure as discipline. God is dealing with you as children; and what child is there that a father does not discipline? 8If you go without the discipline that all children share in, then you are illegitimate, not true children. 9Again: our human fathers corrected us, and we held them in respect. Should we not much more put ourselves under the Father of spirits, and so live? 10Those fathers disciplined us for a short span of years, in whatever way seemed right to them. God does it for what truly benefits us, so that we may come to share in his holiness. 11At the time it is given, no discipline seems a matter for joy; it seems a matter for sorrow. But afterward it pays back those who have been trained by it with a harvest of peace: righteousness.

12So raise your tired hands again and steady your shaking knees. 13Make the tracks your feet walk on straight, so that the limb that is lame is not wrenched out of joint, but is healed instead.

14Seek peace with everyone, and go after holiness, since apart from it no one will see the Lord. 15Watch over one another, so that none of you comes short of God’s grace, no bitter root shoots up and causes trouble, defiling many through it, 16and no one is sexually immoral or without regard for what is holy, as Esau was. He gave up his rights as the firstborn in exchange for one meal. 17You know that later, when he wanted to receive the blessing as his inheritance, he was turned away. He found no opening for repentance, even though he begged for it with tears.

18You have not approached a mountain that could be touched, ablaze with fire, nor darkness and gloom and storm, 19nor the blast of a trumpet and a voice speaking, so that those who heard it begged not to be spoken to anymore. 20The order was more than they could bear: “Even an animal that touches the mountain must be stoned.” 21What appeared was so fearsome that Moses said, “I am full of dread, and I am shaking.” 22No: you have approached Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have approached myriads of angels, a festival gathering 23and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. You have approached a judge who is God of all, and the spirits of righteous people who have been made perfect, 24and Jesus, mediator of a new covenant, and blood sprinkled for cleansing, which says something better than Abel said.

25Be careful not to refuse the one who is speaking to you. They rejected the one who warned them on earth, and they did not escape. Far less will we escape if we turn our backs on the one who warns us from heaven. 26At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has made a promise: “One more time I will shake not the earth alone, but heaven as well.” 27That phrase, “one more time,” makes clear that whatever is shaken will be removed, since it belongs to what was made, so that what is not shaken will remain. 28So, as people who are being given a kingdom that nothing can shake, let us hold on to gratitude, and through it serve God in a way that pleases him, with reverence and awe. 29For our God really is a consuming fire.