1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so persistently harasses us, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 For consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners against Himself, that you not become weary and faint in your souls.

4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.

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

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

7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not discipline?

8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?

10 For they indeed for a few days disciplined us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.

11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised by it.

12 Therefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be turned aside, but rather be healed.

14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord;

15 watching carefully that no one fall short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and through this many become defiled;

16 that there be no prostitute or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food gave away his birthright.

17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

18 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest,

19 and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.

20 (For they could not endure what was commanded: And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.

21 And so formidable was the sight that Moses said, I am in terror and trembling.)

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable multitude of angels,

23 to the gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are registered in Heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made complete,

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

25 See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from the One speaking from Heaven,

26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.

27 Now this, Yet once more, indicates the removal of those things that are being overthrown, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be overthrown may remain.

28 Therefore, since we are 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.