THEREFORE also seeing we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding
us, laying aside every weight, and that most easily besetting sin, let
us run with patience the race lying before us, (2)earnestly looking up
to Jesus the author and the finisher of faith; who, for the joy set
before him, endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God. (3)Consider then attentively him
that endured from sinners such opposition against himself, that ye be
not wearied out, fainting in your souls. (4)As yet ye have not resisted
unto blood, struggling against sin. (5)And have you forgotten the
exhortation which is addressed to you, as children, "My son, count not
lightly of the Lord's childlike correction, nor faint when under his
rebuke: (6)for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth[141]." (7)If ye patiently endure correction, God
carries himself towards you as his children: for who is the son whom
the father doth not correct? (8)If then ye are without correction, of
which all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not children.
(9)If then we have had the fathers of our flesh for correctors, and
reverenced them; shall we not much more be under subjection to the
Father of spirits, and live? (10)For they indeed for a few days as
seemed proper to themselves corrected us; but he for our own advantage,
that we might be partakers of his holiness. (11)Now all correction at
the moment seemeth not to be cause for joy, but for sorrow; but after a
while it produceth peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have
thereby been disciplined.
(12)Wherefore stretch out again the hands that hang down, and the
paralytic knees; (13)and make strait paths for your feet, that what is
halting may not be turned out of the way; but that it may rather be
healed.
(14)Earnestly seek peace with all men, and holiness, without which no
man shall see the Lord: (15)carefully observing lest any of you fail of
attaining the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up
trouble you, and by it many be defiled; (16)lest there be any
fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of bread
parted with his birthrights. (17)For ye know, that when afterwards he
wished to inherit the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place
for a change of _his father's_ mind, though he sought it earnestly with
tears. (18)For ye have not approached the mountain that could only be
groped for, and that burned with fire, and the thick cloud, and the
darkness, and the tempest, (19)and the sound of a trumpet, and the
voice of words, which they who heard, earnestly begged that the
discourse might not be directed to them: (20)for they could not bear
the charge given, and "If but a beast touch the mountain he shall be
stoned, or shot through with a dart[142]:" (21)and so terrible was the
appearance, that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling:
(22)but ye are come unto mount Sion, and to the city of the living God,
to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, (23)and to the
general assembly and church of the first-born registered in the
heavens, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men
perfected, (24)and to Jesus the mediator of the new testament, and to
the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of
Abel.
(25)Beware that ye reject not him that speaketh: for if they escaped
not, who rejected him, that upon earth spake by divine influence, 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 hath promised,
saying, "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also the
heaven[143]." (27)Now this word yet once more manifests the removal of
the things shaken, as of things formed, that the things not shaken may
endure.
(28)Wherefore receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, may we hold
fast the grace, by which we can offer to God acceptably divine service,
with reverence and pious awe: (29)for our God is a devouring fire.