Hebrews 12:1-13 ▼

1 THEREFORE, seeing we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us;

2 And let us look to Jesus, who was the author and the perfecter of our faith; and who, instead of the joy which he could have had, endured the cross, suffered shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 See, therefore, how much he has suffered from the hands of sinners, from those who were a contradiction to themselves, lest you become weary and faint in your soul.

4 You have not yet come face to face with blood in your striving against sin.

5 And you have forgotten the teaching which has been told to you as to children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the LORD, nor let your soul faint when thou art rebuked of him,

6 For whom the LORD loves, he chastens him, and disciplines the sons with whom he is pleased.

7 Now, therefore, endure discipline, because God acts toward you as towards sons; for where is the son whom the father does not discipline?

8 But if you are without discipline, that very discipline by which every man is trained, then you are strangers and not sons.

9 Furthermore if our fathers of the flesh corrected us and we respected them, how much more then should we willingly be under subjection to our Spiritual Father, and live?

10 For they only for a short while, disciplined us as seemed good to them; but God corrects us for our advantage, that we might become partakers of his holiness.

11 No discipline, at the time, is expected to be a thing of joy, but of sorrow; but in the end it produces the fruits of peace and righteousness to those who are trained by it.

12 Therefore, be courageous and strong;

13 And make straight the paths for your feet, so that the weak do not go astray but are healed.