Hebrews 12
12
We Also Should Follow Jesus’ Example
1We have all these great people around us as examples. Their lives tell us what faith means. So we, too, should run the race that is before us and never quit. We should remove from our lives anything that would slow us down and the sin that so often makes us fall. 2We must never stop looking to Jesus. He is the leader of our faith, and he is the one who makes our faith complete. He suffered death on a cross. But he accepted the shame of the cross as if it were nothing because of the joy he could see waiting for him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne. 3Think about Jesus. He patiently endured the angry insults that sinful people were shouting at him. Think about him so that you won’t get discouraged and stop trying.
God Is Like a Father
4You are struggling against sin, but you have not had to give up your life for the cause. 5You are children of God, and he speaks words of comfort to you. You have forgotten these words:
“My child, don’t think the Lord’s discipline is worth nothing,
and don’t stop trying when he corrects you.
6The Lord disciplines everyone he loves;
he punishes everyone he accepts as a child.” Proverbs 3:11-12
7So accept sufferings like a father’s discipline. God does these things to you like a father correcting his children. You know that all children are disciplined by their fathers. 8So, if you never receive the discipline that every child must have, you are not true children and don’t really belong to God. 9We have all had fathers here on earth who corrected us with discipline. And we respected them. So it is even more important that we accept discipline from the Father of our spirits. If we do this, 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 that we can be holy like him. 11We don’t enjoy discipline when we get it. It is painful. But later, after we have learned our lesson from it, we will enjoy the peace that comes from doing what is right.
Be Careful How You Live
12You have become weak, so make yourselves strong again. 13Live in the right way so that you will be saved and your weakness will not cause you to be lost.
14Try to live in peace with everyone. And try to keep your lives free from sin. Anyone whose life is not holy will never see the Lord. 15Be careful that no one fails to get God’s grace. Be careful that no one loses their faith and becomes like a bitter weed growing among you. Someone like that can ruin your whole group. 16Be careful that no one commits sexual sin. And be careful that no one is like Esau and never thinks about God. As the oldest son, Esau would have inherited 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. He wanted that blessing so much that he cried. But his father refused to give him the blessing, because Esau could find no way to change what he had done.
18You have not come to a place that can be seen and touched, like the mountain the people of Israel saw, which was burning with fire and covered with darkness, gloom, and storms. 19There is no sound of a trumpet or a voice speaking words like those they heard. When they heard the voice, they begged never to hear another word. 20They did not want to hear the command: “If anything, even an animal, touches the mountain, it must be killed with stones.”#Quote from Ex. 19:12-13. 21What they saw was so terrible that Moses said, “I am shaking with fear.”#Quote from Deut. 9:19.#12:18-21 These verses refer to things that happened to the people of Israel in the time of Moses as described in Ex. 19.
22But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.#12:22 Jerusalem Here, the spiritual city of God’s people. You have come to a place where thousands of angels have gathered to celebrate. 23You have come to the meeting of God’s firstborn#12:23 firstborn The first son born in a Jewish family had the most important place in the family and received special blessings. All of God’s children are like that. children. Their names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all people. And you have come 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. You have come to the sprinkled blood#12:24 sprinkled blood The blood (death) of Jesus. that tells us about better things than the blood of Abel.
25Be careful and don’t refuse to listen when God speaks. Those people refused to listen to him when he warned them on earth. And they did not escape. Now God is speaking from heaven. So now it will be worse for those who refuse to listen to him. 26When he spoke before, his voice shook the earth. But now he has promised, “Once again I will shake the earth, but I will also shake heaven.”#Quote from Hag. 2:6. 27The words “once again” clearly show us that everything that was created will be destroyed—that is, the things that can be shaken. And only what cannot be shaken will remain.
28So we should be thankful because we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And because we are thankful, we should worship God in a way that will please him. We should do this with respect and fear, 29because our God is like a fire that can destroy us.
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Hebrews 12
12
1 Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Yeshua, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls. 4You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin. 5You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children,
“My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord,
nor faint when you are reproved by him;
6 for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”#Proverbs 3:11-12
7 It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline? 8But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not children. 9Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10For they indeed for a few days disciplined us as seemed good to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. 11All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 12Therefore lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees, #Isaiah 35:3 13and make straight paths for your feet,#Proverbs 4:26 so what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
14 Follow 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 many be defiled by it, 16lest there be any sexually immoral person or profane person, like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal. 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 though he sought it diligently with tears.
18 For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched and that burnt with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm, 19the sound of a shofar, and the voice of words; which those who heard it begged that not one more word should be spoken to them, 20for they could not stand that which was commanded, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned”.#12:20 TR adds “or shot with an arrow”#Exodus 19:12-13 21So fearful was the appearance that Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”#Deuteronomy 9:19
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, 23to the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24to Yeshua, the mediator of a new covenant,#Jeremiah 31:31 and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.
25See that you don’t refuse him who speaks. For if they didn’t escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven, 26whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.”#Haggai 2:6 27This phrase, “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 remain. 28Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can’t be shaken, let’s have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29for our God is a consuming fire.#Deuteronomy 4:24
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