Hebrews 12
The Blood That Speaks Better Than the Blood of Abel
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The Race Set Before Us
12:1Therefore we too, having so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, must lay aside every weight and the sin that readily entangles us, and run with endurance the contest set before us,
12:2looking away to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured a cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
12:3For consider the One who has endured such opposition from sinners against themselves, so that you may not grow weary, fainting in your souls.
The Discipline of the Lord
12:4You have not yet resisted to the point of blood in your struggle against sin,
12:5and you have forgotten the encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, nor faint when reproved by Him.
12:6For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and scourges every son He receives.”
12:7Endure for discipline. God deals with you as sons; for what son is there whom a father does not discipline?
12:8But if you are without discipline, in which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
12:9Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh as disciplinarians and respected them. Shall we not much more submit to the Father of spirits and live?
12:10For they disciplined us for a few days according to what seemed right to them, but He for our benefit, so that we may share in His holiness.
12:11Now every discipline seems for the present to be a matter of sorrow, not joy, but afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those trained through it.
Pursue Peace and Holiness
12:12Therefore straighten the drooping hands and the weakened knees,
12:13and make straight tracks for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather healed.
12:14Pursue peace with everyone, and sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord.
12:15Watch lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness grow up and cause trouble, and through it many be defiled,
12:16lest anyone be sexually immoral or profane like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.
12:17For you know that even afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, although he sought it with tears.
Mount Zion and the Unshakable Kingdom
12:18For you have not approached what can be touched, and a blazing fire, and gloom and darkness and tempest,
12:19and the sound of a trumpet and a voice of words, whose hearers begged that no further word be added to them.
12:20For they could not bear the command: “Even if an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.”
12:21And so fearful was the sight that Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”
12:22But you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels in festal gathering,
12:23and the assembly of firstborn ones enrolled in the heavens, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of righteous ones who have been perfected,
12:24and Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and sprinkled blood that speaks better than Abel.
See That You Do Not Refuse the One Speaking
12:25See that you do not refuse the One who speaks. For if those who refused the One instructing them on earth did not escape, much less shall we, if we turn away from the One from the heavens.
12:26His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.”
12:27Now “yet once more” indicates the removal of the things shaken, as things that have been made, so that the things not shaken may remain.
12:28Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us have gratitude, through which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and awe,
12:29for indeed our God is a consuming fire.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.