1Therefore, we also having so great a cloud of witnesses set around us, having put off every weight, and the closely besetting sin, may we run the contest that is set before us through endurance,

2looking to the Author and Perfecter of the faith—Jesus, who, for the joy set before Him, endured a cross, having despised shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God;

3for again consider Him who endured such contradiction from the sinners to Himself, that you may not be wearied in your souls—being faint.

4You did not yet resist to blood—striving with sin;

5and you have forgotten the exhortation that speaks fully to you as to sons, “My son, do not despise [the] discipline of [the] LORD, nor be faint, being reproved by Him,

6for whom the LORD loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives”;

7if you endure discipline, God bears Himself to you as to sons, for who is a son whom a father does not discipline?

8And if you are apart from discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are bastards, and not sons.

9Then, indeed, we have had fathers of our flesh, correctors, and we respected [them]; will we not much rather be subject to the Father of the spirits, and live?

10For they, indeed, for a few days, according to what seemed good to them, were disciplining, but He for profit, to be partakers of His separation;

11and all discipline for the present, indeed, does not seem to be of joy, but of sorrow, yet afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those exercised through it.

12For this reason, lift up the hanging-down hands and the loosened knees;

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

14pursue peace with all, and the separation, apart from which no one will see the LORD,

15observing lest anyone be failing of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up may give trouble, and through this many may be defiled;

16lest anyone be a fornicator, or a profane person, as Esau, who in exchange for one morsel of food sold his birthright,

17for you know that also afterward, wishing to inherit the blessing, he was disapproved of, for he did not find a place of conversion, though having sought it with tears.

18For you did not come near to the mountain touched and scorched with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and storm,

19and a sound of a trumpet, and a voice of sayings, which those having heard begged that a word might not be added to them,

20for they were not bearing that which is commanded, “And if a beast may touch the mountain, it will be stoned, or shot through with an arrow,”

21and (so terrible was the sight), Moses said, “I am exceedingly fearful, and trembling.”

22But you came to Mount Zion, and to [the] city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of messengers,

23to the assembly-place and Assembly of the Firstborn registered in Heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to spirits of righteous men made perfect,

24and to a mediator of a new covenant—Jesus, and to blood of sprinkling, speaking better things than that of Abel!

25Watch out lest you refuse Him who is speaking, for if those did not escape who refused him who was divinely speaking on earth—much less we who turn away from Him who [speaks] from Heaven,

26whose voice shook the earth then, and now He has promised, saying, “Yet once [more]—I shake not only the earth, but also Heaven”;

27and this, “Yet once [more],” makes evident the removal of the things shaken, as of things having been made, that the things not shaken may remain;

28for this reason, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, may we have grace, through which we may serve God well-pleasingly, with reverence and fear,

29for our God [is] also a consuming fire.