HEBREWS CHAPTER XII.

[ 1 An exhortation to patience and constancy; 14 to follow peace and holiness. 25 The danger of refusing the world. ] 

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 best 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, let ye be wearied 
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 Let 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, entreated 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 
first-born, 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 than 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.