The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Hebrews 12
1 Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses,
lay aside every weight and the sin which
so easily entangles us, and let’s run with
perseverance the race that is set before us,
2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter
of faith, who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising its
shame, and has sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God.
3 For consider him who has endured
such contradiction of sinners against
himself, that you don’t grow weary,
fainting in your souls.
4 You have not yet resisted to blood,
striving against sin.
5 You have forgotten the exhortation
which reasons with you as with children,
“My son, don’t take lightly the chastening
of the Lord, nor faint when you are
reproved by him;
6 for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”*
7 It is for discipline that you endure. God
deals with you as with children, for what
son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline?
8 But if you are without discipline, of
which all have been made partakers, then
you are illegitimate, and not children.
9 Furthermore, we had the fathers of
our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them
respect. Shall we not much rather be in
subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they indeed for a few days disciplined
us as seemed good to them, but he
for our profit, that we may be partakers of
his holiness.
11 All chastening seems for the presentto
be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward
it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore lift up the hands that hang
down and the feeble knees, *
13 and make straight paths for your feet,*
so what is lame may not be dislocated, but
rather be healed.
14 Follow after peace with all men, and
the sanctification without which no man
will see the Lord,
15 looking carefully lesttherebe anyman
who falls short of the grace of God, lest any
root of bitterness springing up trouble you
and many be defiled by it,
16 lest there be any sexually immoral
person or profane person, like Esau, who
sold his birthright for one meal.
17 For you know that even when he afterward
desired to inherit the blessing, he
was rejected, for he found no place for a
change of mind though he sought it
diligently with tears.
18 For you have not come to a mountain
that might be touched and that burned
with fire, and to blackness, darkness,
storm,
19 the sound of a trumpet, and the voice
of words; which those who heard it begged
that not one more word should be spoken
to them,
20 for they could not stand that which
was commanded, “If even an animal
touches themountain, it shallbe stoned”.†*
21 So fearful was the appearance that
Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”*
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and
to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes
of angels,
23 to the festal gathering and assembly of
the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven,
to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just
men made perfect,
24 to Jesus, the mediator of a new
covenant,* and to the blood of sprinkling
that speaks better than that of Abel.
25 See that you don’t refuse him who
speaks. For ifthey didn’t escape when they
refused him who warned on the earth,
how much more will we not escape who
turn away from him who warns from
heaven,
26 whose voice shook the earth then, but
now he has promised, saying, “Yet once
more I will shake not only the earth, but
also the heavens.”*
27 This phrase, “Yet once more” signifies
the removing of those things that are
shaken, as of things that have been made,
that those things which are not shaken
may remain.
28 Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that
can’t be shaken, let’s have grace, through
which we serve God acceptably, with
reverence and awe,
29 for our God is a consuming fire.*