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¹ THEREFORE, seeing we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us;² And let us look to Jesus, who was the author and the perfecter of our faith; and who, instead of the joy which he could have had, endured the cross, suffered shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.³ See, therefore, how much he has suffered from the hands of sinners, from those who were a contradiction to themselves, lest you become weary and faint in your soul.

⁴ You have not yet come face to face with blood in your striving against sin.⁵ And you have forgotten the teaching which has been told to you as to children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the LORD, nor let your soul faint when thou art rebuked of him,⁶ For whom the LORD loves, he chastens him, and disciplines the sons with whom he is pleased.⁷ Now, therefore, endure discipline, because God acts toward you as towards sons; for where is the son whom the father does not discipline?⁸ But if you are without discipline, that very discipline by which every man is trained, then you are strangers and not sons.⁹ Furthermore if our fathers of the flesh corrected us and we respected them, how much more then should we willingly be under subjection to our Spiritual Father, and live?¹⁰ For they only for a short while, disciplined us as seemed good to them; but God corrects us for our advantage, that we might become partakers of his holiness.¹¹ No discipline, at the time, is expected to be a thing of joy, but of sorrow; but in the end it produces the fruits of peace and righteousness to those who are trained by it.¹² Therefore, be courageous and strong;¹³ And make straight the paths for your feet, so that the weak do not go astray but are healed.¹⁴ Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see our LORD.¹⁵ Take heed lest any man among you be found short of the grace of God; or lest any root of bitterness spring forth and harm you, and thereby many be defiled;¹⁶ Or lest any man among you be found immoral and weak like Esau, who sold his birthright for a morsel of meat.¹⁷ For you know that afterward when he wished to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, and he had no chance of recovery, even though he sought it with tears.

¹⁸ For you have yet neither come near the roaring fire, nor the darkness nor the storm nor the tempest,¹⁹ Nor to the sound of the trumpet and the voice of the word; which voice they heard but refused so that the word will not be spoken to them any more.²⁰ For they could not survive that which was commanded, for if even a beast drew near the mountain, it would be stoned.²¹ And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I fear and quake.²² But you have come near to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable multitude of angels,²³ And to the congregation of the first converts who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of pious men made perfect²⁴ And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkling of his blood, which speaks a better message than Abel did.²⁵ Beware, therefore, lest you refuse him who speaks to you. For if they were not delivered who refused him who spoke with them on earth, much more can we not escape if we refuse him who speaks to us from heaven:²⁶ The one whose voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, saying, Once more I will shake not only the earth, but also heaven.²⁷ And this word, Once more, signifies the change of things which may be shaken, because they are made, in order that the things which can not be shaken may remain.²⁸ Therefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us hold fast that grace whereby we may serve and please God with reverence and godly fear:²⁹ For our God is a consuming fire.