Endurance in the Race of Faith

1 Therefore, having been surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

2 looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of 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 hostility against Himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your struggle against sin.

5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not despise the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary of His correction,

6 for whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.”

7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

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

9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?

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

11 Now all discipline seems not to be joyous at the time, but sorrowful; yet afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

12 Therefore, lift up the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,

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

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

15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any bitter root grow up to trouble you, and by it many be defiled;

16 lest there be any sexually immoral or godless person like Esau, who for a single meal sold his own birthright.

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

18 For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and tempest,

19 and to the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them;

20 for they could not bear what was commanded: “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.”

21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I am trembling and quaking.”

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,

23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,

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

25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape when they refused Him who warned on earth, much less shall we escape if we turn away from Him who warns from heaven,

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

27 Now this “yet once more” indicates the removal of the things that are shaken, as of created things, so that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.

28 Therefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe;

29 for our God is a consuming fire.