Hebrews Chapter 12
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,
12:2 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.
12:3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against
himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
12:4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
12:5 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:
12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he
receiveth.
12:7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son
is he whom the father chasteneth not?
12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye
bastards, and not sons.
12:9 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?
12:10 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.
12:11 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.
12:12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
12:13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned
out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
12:14 Follow peace with all
men
, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
12:15 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;
12:16 Lest there
be
any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold
his birthright.
12:17 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.
12:18 For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned
with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
12:19 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:
12:20 (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:
12:21 And so terrible was the sight,
that
Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
12:22 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,
12:23 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,
12:24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling, that speaketh better things than
that of
Abel.
12:25 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:
12:26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet
once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
12:27 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.
12:28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have
grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
12:29 For our God
is
a consuming fire.