|
Chapter 12 |
| 1 | Wherefore
seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us
run with patience the race that is set before us, |
| 2 | Looking unto
Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand
of the throne of God. |
| 3 | For consider him that endured such
contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your
minds. |
| 4 |
Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against
sin. |
| 5 |
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you
as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor
faint when thou art rebuked of him: |
| 6 | For whom the Lord loveth he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. |
| 7 | If ye endure
chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the
father chasteneth not? |
| 8 | But if ye be without chastisement, whereof
all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. |
| 9 | Furthermore we
have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence:
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and
live? |
| 10 |
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own
pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his
holiness. |
| 11
| Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous,
but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. |
| 12 | Wherefore
lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; |
| 13 | And make
straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way;
but let it rather be healed. |
|
14 | Follow peace with all men, and
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: |
| 15 | Looking
diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness
springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; |
| 16 | Lest there
be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold
his birthright. |
|
17 | For ye know how that afterward, when he would have
inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance,
though he sought it carefully with tears. |
|
18 | For ye are not come unto
the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness,
and darkness, and tempest, |
|
19 | And the sound of a trumpet, and the
voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not
be spoken to them any more: |
|
20 | (For they could not endure that which
was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be
stoned, or thrust through with a dart: |
| 21 | And so terrible was the
sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) |
| 22 | But ye are
come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, |
| 23 | To the
general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and
to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
|
| 24 | And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling, that speaketh better things that that of Abel. |
| 25 | See that
ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that
spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that
speaketh from heaven: |
| 26 | Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he
hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also
heaven. |
| 27
| And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of
those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things
which cannot be shaken may remain. |
| 28 | Wherefore we receiving a
kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God
acceptably with reverence and godly fear: |
|
29 | For our God is a consuming
fire. |
