The Chastening of the Lord

121 Therefore, 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, 2 looking 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; 3 for consider again him who endured such gainsaying from the sinners to himself, that ye may not be wearied in your souls—being faint.

4 Not yet unto blood did ye resist—with the sin striving; 5 and 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, 6 for whom the Lord doth love He doth chasten, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth;' 7 if chastening ye endure, as to sons God beareth Himself to you, for who is a son whom a father doth not chasten? 8 and if ye are apart from chastening, of which all have become partakers, then bastards are ye, and not sons. 9 Then, 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? 10 for 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; 11 and 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.

Warning against Rejecting God's Grace

12 Wherefore, the hanging-down hands and the loosened knees set ye up; 13 and straight paths make for your feet, that that which is lame may not be turned aside, but rather be healed; 14 peace pursue with all, and the separation, apart from which no one shall see the Lord, 15 looking 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; 16 lest any one be a fornicator, or a profane person, as Esau, who in exchange for one morsel of food did sell his birthright, 17 for 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.

18 For ye came not near to the mount touched and scorched with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 19 and 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, 20 for 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,' 21 and, (so terrible was the sight,) Moses said, 'I am fearful exceedingly, and trembling.' 22 But, ye came to Mount Zion, and to a city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of messengers, 23 to 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, 24 and to a mediator of a new covenant—Jesus, and to blood of sprinkling, speaking better things than that of Abel! 25 See, 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, 26 whose voice the earth shook then, and now hath he promised, saying, 'Yet once—I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven;' 27 and 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; 28 wherefore, a kingdom that cannot be shaken receiving, may we have grace, through which we may serve God well-pleasingly, with reverence and religious fear; 29 for also our God 'is' a consuming fire.

Christ Superior to Moses

31 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the apostle and chief priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, 2 being stedfast to Him who did appoint him, as also Moses in all his house, 3 for of more glory than Moses hath this one been counted worthy, inasmuch as more honour than the house hath he who doth build it, 4 for every house is builded by some one, and He who the all things did build 'is' God, 5 and Moses indeed 'was' stedfast in all his house, as an attendant, for a testimony of those things that were to be spoken, 6 and Christ, as a Son over his house, whose house are we, if the boldness and the rejoicing of the hope unto the end we hold fast.

A Rest for the People of God

7 Wherefore, (as the Holy Spirit saith, 'To-day, if His voice ye may hear— 8 ye may not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of the temptation in the wilderness, 9 in which tempt Me did your fathers, they did prove Me, and saw My works forty years; 10 wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, Always do they go astray in heart, and these have not known My ways; 11 so I sware in My anger, If they shall enter into My rest—!') 12 See, brethren, lest there shall be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in the falling away from the living God, 13 but exhort ye one another every day, while the To-day is called, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of the sin, 14 for partakers we have become of the Christ, if the beginning of the confidence unto the end we may hold fast, 15 in its being said, 'To-day, if His voice ye may hear, ye may not harden your hearts, as in the provocation,' 16 for certain having heard did provoke, but not all who did come out of Egypt through Moses; 17 but with whom was He grieved forty years? was it not with those who did sin, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? 18 and to whom did He swear that they shall not enter into His rest, except to those who did not believe?— 19 and we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief.