1Therefore, since we too have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart in your souls.
4You have not yet resisted to the point of blood in your struggle against sin,
5and you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, nor lose heart when you are reproved by him;
6for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he flogs every son whom he receives.”
7It is for discipline that you endure; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
8But if you are without discipline, in which all have shared, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
9Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh as those who disciplined us, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
10For they disciplined us for a few days as seemed best to them, but he does so for our benefit, so that we may share in his holiness.
11Now all discipline seems for the present not to be joyful but painful; yet later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
12Therefore lift up the drooping hands and the weakened knees,
13and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislodged but rather be healed.
14Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord;
15watching carefully that no one falls short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up may cause trouble and by it many be defiled;
16that there be no sexually immoral or profane person like Esau, who for a single meal sold his own birthright.
17For you know that afterward, when he wished to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no opportunity for repentance, though he sought it with tears.
18For you have not come to something that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and a tempest,
19and to a trumpet’s blast, and to a voice speaking words, which those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them;
20for they could not endure what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.”
21And so fearful was the sight that Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”
22But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal gathering,
23and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,
24and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks better than that of Abel.
25See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns from heaven;
26whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also heaven.”
27Now this phrase “Yet once more” indicates the removal of the things that are shaken, as things that have been made, so that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
28Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be grateful, and by it let us offer worship pleasing to God, with reverence and awe;
29for indeed our God is a consuming fire.
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