Therefore strengthen the hands which
hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet,
so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the
Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any
root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;
lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel
of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit
the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he
sought it diligently with tears.
For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with
fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and
the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not
be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: "And
if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned[e] or shot with
an arrow." And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I am exceedingly
afraid and trembling.")
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church
of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the
spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant,
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused
Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him
who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised,
saying, "Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven." Now
this, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of those things that are
being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken
may remain.
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have
grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
For our God is a consuming fire.
—Hebrews 12:12-29
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