1 Therefore, with all this host of witnesses encircling us, we must strip off every handicap, strip off sin with its clinging folds, to run our appointed course steadily, 2 our eyes fixed upon Jesus as the pioneer and the perfection of faith ??upon Jesus who, in order to reach his own appointed joy, steadily endured the cross, thinking nothing of its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Compare him who steadily endured all that hostility from sinful men, so as to keep your own hearts from fainting and failing. 4 You have not had to shed blood yet in the struggle against sin. 5 And have you forgotten the word of appeal that reasons with you as sons? ??My son, never make light of the Lord's discipline, never faint under his reproofs; 6 for the Lord disciplines the man he loves, and scourges every son he receives.
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for where is the son who is not disciplined by his father? 8 Discipline is the portion of all; if you get no discipline, then you are not sons but bastards. 9 Why, we had fathers of our flesh to discipline us, and we yielded to them! Shall we not far more submit to the Father of our spirits, and so live? 10 For while their discipline was only for a time, and inflicted at their pleasure, he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his own holiness. 11 Discipline always seems for the time to be a thing of pain, not of joy; but those who are trained by it reap the fruit of it afterwards in the peace of an upright life.
12 So up with your listless hands! Strengthen your weak knees! 13 And make straight paths for your feet to walk in. You must not let the lame get dislocated, but rather make them whole.
14 Aim at peace with all ??and at that consecration without which no one will ever see the Lord; 15 see to it that no one misses the grace of God, that no root of bitterness grows up to be a trouble by contaminating all the rest of you; 16 that no one turns to sexual vice or to a profane life as Esau did ??Esau, who for a single meal parted with his birthright. 17 You know how later on, when he wanted to obtain his inheritance of blessing, he was set aside; he got no chance to repent, though he tried for it with tears.
18 You have not come to what you can touch, to flames of fire, to mist and gloom and stormy blasts, 19 to the blare of a trumpet and to a Voice whose words made those who heard it refuse to hear another syllable 20 (for they could not bear the command, If even a beast touches the mountain, it must be stoned) ??21 indeed, so awful was the sight that Moses said, I am terrified and aghast. 22 You have come to mount Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels in festal gathering, 23 to the assembly of the first-born registered in heaven, to the God of all as judge, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus who mediates the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood whose message is nobler than Abel's.
25 See that you do not refuse to listen to His voice. For if they failed to escape, who refused to listen to their instructor upon earth, much less shall we escape, if we discard Him who speaks from heaven. 26 Then his voice shook the earth, but now the assurance is, once again I will make heaven as well as earth to quake. 27 That phrase, once again, denotes the removal of what is shaken (as no more than created), to leave only what stands unshaken. 28 Therefore let us render thanks that we get an unshaken realm; and in this way let us worship God acceptably ??29 but with godly fear and awe, for our God is indeed a consuming fire.