Hebrews 12
12
Follow Jesus’ Example
1We are surrounded by a great cloud of people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race that is before us and never give up. We should remove from our lives anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back. 2Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne. 3Think about Jesus’ example. He held on while wicked people were doing evil things to him. So do not get tired and stop trying.
God Is like a Father
4You are struggling against sin, but your struggles have not yet caused you to be killed. 5You have forgotten the encouraging words that call you his children:
“My child, don’t think the Lord’s discipline is worth nothing,
and don’t stop trying when he corrects you.
6The Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as his child.”#Proverbs 3:11–12
7So hold on through your sufferings, because they are like a father’s discipline. God is treating you as children. All children are disciplined by their fathers. 8If you are never disciplined (and every child must be disciplined), you are not true children. 9We have all had fathers here on earth who disciplined us, and we respected them. So it is even more important that we accept discipline from the Father of our spirits so we will have life. 10Our fathers on earth disciplined us for a short time in the way they thought was best. But God disciplines us to help us, so we can become holy as he is. 11We do not enjoy being disciplined. It is painful at the time, but later, after we have learned from it, we have peace, because we start living in the right way.
Be Careful How You Live
12You have become weak, so make yourselves strong again. 13Keep on the right path, so the weak will not stumble but rather be strengthened.
14Try to live in peace with all people, and try to live free from sin. Anyone whose life is not holy will never see the Lord. 15Be careful that no one fails to receive God’s grace and begins to cause trouble among you. A person like that can ruin many of you. 16Be careful that no one takes part in sexual sin or is like Esau and never thinks about God. As the oldest son, Esau would have received everything from his father, but he sold all that for a single meal. 17You remember that after Esau did this, he wanted to get his father’s blessing, but his father refused. Esau could find no way to change what he had done, even though he wanted the blessing so much that he cried.
18You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire. You have not come to darkness, sadness, and storms. 19You have not come to the noise of a trumpet or to the sound of a voice like the one the people of Israel heard and begged not to hear another word. 20They did not want to hear the command: “If anything, even an animal, touches the mountain, it must be put to death with stones.” 21What they saw was so terrible that Moses said, “I am shaking with fear.”
22But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands of angels gathered together with joy. 23You have come to the meeting of God’s firstborn children whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all people, and to the spirits of good people who have been made perfect. 24You have come to Jesus, the One who brought the new agreement from God to his people, and you have come to the sprinkled blood that has a better message than the blood of Abel.
25So be careful and do not refuse to listen when God speaks. Others refused to listen to him when he warned them on earth, and they did not escape. So it will be worse for us if we refuse to listen to God who warns us from heaven. 26When he spoke before, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once again I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27The words “once again” clearly show us that everything that was made—things that can be shaken—will be destroyed. Only the things that cannot be shaken will remain.
28So let us be thankful, because we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We should worship God in a way that pleases him with respect and fear, 29because our God is like a fire that burns things up.
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Hebrews 12: NCV
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The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Hebrews 12
12
1Therefore, we also having so great a cloud of witnesses set around us, every weight having put off, and the closely besetting sin, through endurance may we run the contest that is set before us,
2looking to the author and perfecter of faith — Jesus, who, over-against the joy set before him — did endure a cross, shame having despised, on the right hand also of the throne of God did sit down;
3for consider again him who endured such gainsaying from the sinners to himself, that ye may not be wearied in your souls — being faint.
4Not yet unto blood did ye resist — with the sin striving;
5and ye have forgotten the exhortation that doth speak fully with you as with sons, ‘My son, be not despising chastening of the Lord, nor be faint, being reproved by Him,
6for whom the Lord doth love He doth chasten, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth;’
7if chastening ye endure, as to sons God beareth Himself to you, for who is a son whom a father doth not chasten?
8and if ye are apart from chastening, of which all have become partakers, then bastards are ye, and not sons.
9Then, indeed, fathers of our flesh we have had, chastising [us], and we were reverencing [them]; shall 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 chastening, but He for profit, to be partakers of His separation;
11and all chastening for the present, indeed, doth not seem to be of joy, but of sorrow, yet afterward the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those exercised through it — it doth yield.
12Wherefore, the hanging-down hands and the loosened knees set ye up;
13and straight paths make for your feet, that that which is lame may not be turned aside, but rather be healed;
14peace pursue with all, and the separation, apart from which no one shall see the Lord,
15looking diligently over lest any one 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 any one be a fornicator, or a profane person, as Esau, who in exchange for one morsel of food did sell his birthright,
17for ye know that also afterwards, wishing to inherit the blessing, he was disapproved of, for a place of reformation he found not, though with tears having sought it.
18For ye came not near to the mount touched and scorched with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
19and a sound of a trumpet, and a voice of sayings, which those having heard did entreat 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 shall be stoned, or with an arrow shot through,’
21and, (so terrible was the sight,) Moses said, ‘I am fearful exceedingly, and trembling.’
22But, ye came to Mount Zion, and to a city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of messengers,
23to the company and assembly of the first-born in heaven enrolled, 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!
25See, may ye not refuse him who is speaking, for if those did not escape who refused him who upon earth was divinely speaking — much less we who do turn away from him who [speaketh] from heaven,
26whose voice the earth shook then, and now hath he promised, saying, ‘Yet once — I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven;’
27and this — ‘Yet once’ — doth make evident the removal of the things shaken, as of things having been made, that the things not shaken may remain;
28wherefore, a kingdom that cannot be shaken receiving, may we have grace, through which we may serve God well-pleasingly, with reverence and religious fear;
29for also our God [is] a consuming fire.
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