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Hebrews

Chapter 12

Summary

Drawing inspiration from the "great cloud of witnesses," the author exhorts believers to run the race with endurance, looking to Jesus as the "author and finisher of our faith." He provides a profound teaching on divine discipline, reminding the readers that "the Lord disciplines whom He loves" and that this training produces the "peaceable fruit of righteousness." The author contrasts the terrifying experience of Sinai with the glorious reality of Mount Zion, the "city of the living God." He concludes with a solemn warning to "refuse not Him who speaks" and to serve God acceptably with "reverence and godly fear," for "our God is a consuming fire."

1

Therefore seeing we also are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

2

Looking to 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 seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

3

For consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be weary and faint in your minds.

4

You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.

5

And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to children, "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by Him:"

6

For whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and scourges every son whom He receives.

7

If you endure discipline, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father disciplines not?

8

But if you be without discipline, of which all are partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not sons.

9

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?

10

For they truly for a few days disciplined us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.

11

Now no discipline for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

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

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord:

15

Looking diligently lest any person 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 food sold his birthright.

17

For you 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 you are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor to blackness, and darkness, and tempest,

19

And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice those who heard pleaded 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 you are come to mount Zion, and to 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 people made perfect,

24

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.

25

See that you refuse not Him who speaks. For if they escaped not who refused Him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven:

26

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven."

27

And this word, "Yet once more," signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

28

Therefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

29

For our God is a consuming fire.