1Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, 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, 2looking to Jesus the author and perfecter of [our] faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3For consider him who has endured such opposing of sinners against himself, that you{+} do not wax weary, fainting in your{+} souls. 4You{+} have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin: 5and you{+} have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you{+} as with sons, My son, do not regard lightly the chastening of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved of him; 6For whom the Lord loves he chastens, And scourges every son whom he receives. 7It is for chastening that you{+} endure; God deals with you{+} as with sons; for what son is there whom [his] father does not chasten? 8But if you{+} are without chastening, of which all have been made sharers, then you{+} are bastards, and not sons. 9Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence: and shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? 10For they indeed for a few days chastened [us] as seemed good to them; but he for [our] profit, that [we] may be partakers of his holiness. 11And all chastening seems for the present not to be joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit to those who have been exercised by it, [even the fruit] of righteousness. 12Therefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees; 13and make straight paths for your{+} feet, that that which is lame not be turned out of the way, but rather be healed. 14Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord: 15looking carefully lest [there be] any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble [you{+}], and by it many be defiled; 16lest [there be] any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright. 17For you{+} know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for a change of mind [in his father,] though he sought it diligently with tears. 18For you{+} have not come to [a mount] that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 19and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which [voice] those who heard entreated that no word more should be spoken to them; 20for they could not endure that which was enjoined, If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned; 21and so fearful was the appearance, [that] Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake: 22but you{+} have come to mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to tens of thousands of angels in a festive gathering, 23and to the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than [that of] Abel. 25See that you{+} do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned [them] on earth, much more [will] we [not escape] who turn away from him who [warns] from heaven: 26whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I will make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. 27And this [word], Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may stay. 28Therefore, receiving a kingdom that can't be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: 29for our God is a consuming fire.