A Call to Endurance
(2 Timothy 2:1–13)

1Having therefore so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every incumbrance, and the sin that easily besets us, and run with patience the race that is set before us, 2looking unto Jesus the leader and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3Wherefore consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, that ye may not give out, fainting in your minds:

God Disciplines His Sons

4for ye have not resisted unto blood in striving against sin.

5Have ye forgotten the exhortation, which speaketh to you as to sons, saying, "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor saint when rebuked by Him?

6for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."

7If ye endure chastening, God treateth you as sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not chastise? 8But if ye be without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons. 9Now if we had fathers of our flesh, who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? 10For they indeed corrected us for a while, as seemed good to them; but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. 11Now no chastening seems for the present to be matter of joy but of grief: and yet afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those that are exercised thereby.

12Lift up therefore the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. 13And make strait paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be turned out of the way, but rather be healed.

A Call to Holiness
(1 Peter 1:13–21)

14Follow peace with all men; and holiness, without which none shall see the Lord: 15looking to it, least there be any one falling short of the grace of God, least any root of bitterness springing up should be troublesome, and by it many be defiled: 16least there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one repast gave away his birthright. 17For ye know that, when he would afterwards have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no room for repentance, though he sought it earnestly even with tears.

An Unshakable Kingdom

18Ye are not come to a tangible mountain, and burning fire, and a thick cloud, and darkness, and tempest, 19and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which they that heard, intreated that the word might not any more be thus delivered to them: 20(for they could not bear the strict command, if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or shot through with a dart; 21and so terrible was the appearance that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and tremble:) 22but ye are come to mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, 23to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, 24and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than Abel.

25See that ye reject not Him that speaketh; for if they escaped not, who rejected him that gave forth divine oracles on earth, much less shall we, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven: 26whose voice then shook the earth; but now He hath promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven." 27Now this expression "yet once more" signifieth the removing of the things that are shaken, as of things which had been appointed only for a season, that those which cannot be shaken may remain. 28Wherefore since we receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and holy fear: 29for our God is a consuming fire.