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,
02 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.
03 For consider him that endured such
contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye
be wearied and faint in your minds.
04 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving
against sin.
05 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:
06 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
07 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you
as with sons; for what son is he whom the father
chasteneth not?
08 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all
are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not
sons.
09 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.
__________________________________ |
