Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of Faith

12 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, ^(A)laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us ^(B)run with ^(C)endurance the race that is set before us, ^2 [a]fixing our eyes on Jesus, the ^[b](D)author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him ^(E)endured the cross, ^(F)despising the shame, and has ^(G)sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

³ For ^(H)consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary, ^(I)fainting ^[c]in heart.

The Father’s Discipline

^4 (J)You have not yet resisted ^[d](K)to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. ⁵ And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

⁷ It is for discipline that you endure; ^(P)God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ But if you are without discipline, ^(Q)of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we ^[g]had ^[h]earthly fathers to discipline us, and we ^(R)respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to ^(S)the Father of ^[i]spirits, and ^(T)live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our benefit, ^(U)so that we may share His holiness. ¹¹ And all discipline ^(V)for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, but to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the ^(W)peaceful fruit of righteousness.

¹² Therefore, ^[j](X)strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, ¹³ and ^(Y)make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather ^(Z)be healed.

^14 (AA)Pursue peace with all men, and the ^(AB)sanctification without which no one will ^(AC)see the Lord, ¹⁵ seeing to it that no one ^(AD)falls short of the grace of God; that no ^(AE)root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be ^(AF)defiled; ¹⁶ that also there be no ^(AG)sexually immoral or ^(AH)godless person like Esau, ^(AI)who sold his own birthright for a single meal. ¹⁷ For you know that even afterwards, ^(AJ)when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

Contrast of Sinai and Zion

^18 (AK)For you have not come to ^(AL)a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, ¹⁹ and to the ^(AM)blast of a trumpet and the ^(AN)sound of words which was such that those who heard ^(AO)begged that no further word be spoken to them. ²⁰ For they could not bear what was being commanded, “^(AP)If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.” ²¹ And so terrible was what appeared, that Moses said, “^(AQ)I am full of fear and trembling.” ²² But ^(AR)you have come to Mount Zion and to ^(AS)the city of ^(AT)the living God, ^(AU)the heavenly Jerusalem, and to ^(AV)myriads of ^[k]angels, ²³ to the festal gathering and ^(AW)assembly of the firstborn who ^(AX)are enrolled in heaven, and to God, ^(AY)the Judge of all, and to the ^(AZ)spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴ and to Jesus, the ^(BA)mediator of a new covenant, and to the ^(BB)sprinkled blood, which speaks better than ^(BC)the blood of Abel.

An Unshakable Kingdom

^25 (BD)See to it that you do not refuse Him who is ^(BE)speaking. For ^(BF)if those did not escape when they ^(BG)refused him who ^(BH)warned them on earth, ^[l]much less will we escape who turn away from Him who ^(BI)warns from heaven. ²⁶ And ^(BJ)His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “^(BK)Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.” ²⁷ Now this expression, “Yet once more,” indicates ^(BL)the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸ Therefore, since we are receiving a ^(BM)kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us ^[m]show gratitude, by which we may ^(BN)offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; ²⁹ for ^(BO)our God is a consuming fire.

Trust, Fear, and Honor Yahweh

A Father’s Wise Instruction

Israel at Sinai

19 ^(A)In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on this day they came into the wilderness of ^(B)Sinai. ² Then they set out from ^(C)Rephidim and came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of ^(D)the mountain.

³ Now Moses went up to God, and ^(E)Yahweh called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: ⁴ ‘^(F)You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on ^(G)eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. ⁵ So now then, ^(H)if you will indeed listen to My voice and ^(I)keep My covenant, then you shall be ^(J)My treasured possession among all the peoples, for ^(K)all the earth is Mine; ⁶ and you shall be to Me ^(L)a kingdom of priests and ^(M)a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”

^7 (N)So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words which Yahweh had commanded him. ^8 (O)And all the people answered together and said, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do!” And Moses brought back the words of the people to Yahweh. ⁹ Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, I will come to you in ^(P)a thick cloud, so that the ^(Q)people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever.” Then Moses told the words of the people to Yahweh.

¹⁰ Yahweh also said to Moses, “Go to the people and ^(R)set them apart as holy today and tomorrow, and let them ^(S)wash their garments; ¹¹ and let them be ready for the third day, for on ^(T)the third day Yahweh will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. ¹² And you shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, ‘^[a]Beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it; ^(U)whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. ¹³ No hand shall touch him, but ^(V)he shall surely be stoned or surely ^[b]shot through; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast, they shall come up to ^(W)the mountain.” ¹⁴ So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and set the people apart as holy, and they washed their garments. ¹⁵ And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”

^16 (X)So it happened on the third day, when it was morning, that there were ^[c]thunder and lightning flashes and a ^[d]thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. ¹⁷ And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the ^[e]foot of the mountain.

Yahweh Descends on Mount Sinai

^18 (Y)Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because Yahweh descended upon it ^(Z)in fire; and its smoke ascended like ^(AA)the smoke of a furnace, and ^(AB)the whole mountain trembled violently. ¹⁹ And the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder; then Moses spoke and ^(AC)God answered him with ^[f]thunder. ^20 (AD)And Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. ²¹ Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go down, ^[g]warn the people, lest ^(AE)they break through to Yahweh to see, and many of them ^[h]perish. ²² Also let the ^(AF)priests who come near to Yahweh set themselves apart as holy, lest Yahweh break out against them.” ²³ And Moses said to Yahweh, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You ^[i]warned us, saying, ‘^(AG)Set bounds about the mountain, and set it apart as holy.’” ²⁴ Then Yahweh said to him, “^[j]Go down and come up again, ^(AH)you and Aaron with you; but do not let the ^(AI)priests and the people break through to come up to Yahweh, lest He break out against them.” ²⁵ So Moses went down to the people and told them.

Keep the Commandments of Yahweh

4 “So now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which ^(A)I am teaching you to do, so that ^(B)you may live and go in and take possession of the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you. ^2 (C)You shall not add to the word which ^(D)I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I am commanding you. ^3 (E)Your eyes have seen what Yahweh has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who walked after Baal-peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed ^[a]them from among you. ⁴ But you who clung to Yahweh your God are alive today, every one of you.

⁵ “See, I have taught you statutes and judgments ^(F)just as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. ⁶ You shall keep and do them, ^(G)for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ ⁷ For ^(H)what great nation is there that has a god ^(I)so near to it as is Yahweh our God ^(J)whenever we call on Him? ⁸ Or what great nation is there that has ^(K)statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

⁹ “Only ^(L)keep yourself and keep your soul very carefully, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your heart ^(M)all the days of your life. But ^(N)make them known to your sons and to your grandsons. ¹⁰ Remember the day you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me, that I may cause them to hear My words ^(O)so they may learn to ^[b]fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may ^(P)teach their children.’ ¹¹ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, ^(Q)and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud, and dense gloom. ¹² Then Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form—only a voice. ¹³ So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to do, that is, ^(R)the Ten ^[c]Commandments; and ^(S)He wrote them on two tablets of stone. ¹⁴ And Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it.

¹⁵ “So ^(T)keep your souls very carefully, since you did not see any ^(U)form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, ¹⁶ lest you ^(V)act corruptly and ^(W)make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, ¹⁷ the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of ^(X)any winged bird that flies in the sky, ¹⁸ the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth, ¹⁹ and lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, ^(Y)all the host of heaven, ^(Z)and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which Yahweh your God has apportioned for all the peoples under the whole heaven. ²⁰ But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of ^(AA)the iron furnace, from Egypt, to ^(AB)be a people for His own inheritance, as today.

²¹ “^(AC)Now Yahweh was angry with me on your account and swore that I would not cross the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance. ²² For ^(AD)I will die in this land, I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this ^(AE)good land. ²³ So keep yourselves, ^(AF)lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God which He cut with you and ^(AG)make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which Yahweh your God has commanded you. ²⁴ For Yahweh your God is a ^(AH)consuming fire, a ^(AI)jealous God.

²⁵ “When you ^[d]become the father of children and children’s children and remain long in the land and ^(AJ)act corruptly and ^(AK)make ^[e]a graven image in the form of anything and ^(AL)do that which is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God so as to provoke Him to anger, ²⁶ I ^(AM)call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will ^(AN)surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not prolong your days on it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷ And Yahweh will ^(AO)scatter you among the peoples, and you will remain few in number among the nations where Yahweh drives you. ^28 (AP)And there you will serve gods, the work of man’s hands, ^(AQ)wood and stone, ^(AR)which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. ^29 (AS)But from there you will seek Yahweh your God, and you will find Him, for you will search for Him ^(AT)with all your heart and all your soul. ³⁰ When you ^(AU)are in distress and all these things have come upon you, ^(AV)in the last days ^(AW)you will return to Yahweh your God and listen to His voice. ³¹ For Yahweh your God is a ^(AX)compassionate God; ^(AY)He will not fail you nor ^(AZ)destroy you nor ^(BA)forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.

³² “Indeed, ^(BB)ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the ^(BC)day that God created ^[f]man on the earth, and inquire ^(BD)from one end of the heavens to the other. ^(BE)Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? ^33 (BF)Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and lived? ^34 (BG)Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation ^(BH)with trials, with signs and wonders and with war and ^(BI)with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terrors, ^[g]as Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? ³⁵ To you it was shown that you might know that Yahweh, He is God; ^(BJ)there is no other besides Him. ^36 (BK)Out of the heavens He caused you to hear His voice ^(BL)to discipline you; and on earth He caused you to see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. ^37 [h](BM)Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them. And He ^[i](BN)personally brought you from Egypt by His great power, ³⁸ dispossessing before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and ^(BO)to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today. ³⁹ Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that ^(BP)Yahweh, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. ^40 (BQ)So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you today, that ^(BR)it may go well with you and with your children after you, and ^(BS)that you may prolong your days on the land which Yahweh your God is giving you for all the days.”

Israel Provoked Yahweh

9 “Hear, O Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess ^(A)nations greater and mightier than you, great cities ^[a](B)fortified to heaven, ² a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, ‘^(C)Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ ³ So you shall know today that ^(D)it is Yahweh your God who is crossing over before you as ^(E)a consuming fire. He will destroy them, and He will subdue them before you, so that ^(F)you may dispossess them and make them perish quickly, just as Yahweh has spoken to you.

⁴ “^(G)Do not say in your heart when Yahweh your God has driven them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land,’ but it is ^(H)because of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh is dispossessing them before you. ⁵ It is ^(I)not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to confirm ^(J)the ^[b]oath which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶ “So you shall know it is not because of your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are ^(K)a ^[c]stiff-necked people. ⁷ Remember, do not forget how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness; ^(L)from the day that you went out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh. ⁸ Even ^(M)at Horeb you provoked Yahweh to wrath, and Yahweh was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you. ⁹ When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh had cut with you, then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights; ^(N)I neither ate bread nor drank water. ¹⁰ And Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone ^(O)written by the finger of God; and on them were all the words which Yahweh had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. ¹¹ Now it happened ^(P)at the end of forty days and nights, that Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. ^12 (Q)Then Yahweh said to me, ‘Arise, go down from here quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have ^(R)quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made a molten image for themselves.’ ^13 (S)Yahweh spoke further to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, ^[d]they are a ^[e](T)stiff-necked people. ^14 (U)Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and ^(V)blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.’

¹⁵ “^(W)So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ And I saw that you had indeed sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made for yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which Yahweh had commanded you. ¹⁷ And I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my hands and shattered them before your eyes. ^18 (X)And I fell down before Yahweh, ^(Y)as at the first, forty days and nights; ^(Z)I neither ate bread nor drank water ^(AA)because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of Yahweh to provoke Him to anger. ¹⁹ For ^(AB)I was afraid of the anger and the wrath with which Yahweh was provoked against you in order to destroy you, ^(AC)but Yahweh listened to me that time also. ²⁰ And Yahweh was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him; so I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. ^21 (AD)Now I took your ^[f]sinful thing, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that came down from the mountain.

²² “Again at ^(AE)Taberah and at ^(AF)Massah and at ^(AG)Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked Yahweh to wrath. ²³ When Yahweh sent you from ^(AH)Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘^(AI)Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the ^[g]command of Yahweh your God; ^(AJ)you did not believe Him, and you did not listen to His voice. ^24 (AK)You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day I knew you.

²⁵ “^(AL)So I fell down before Yahweh the forty days and the forty nights, which I ^[h]did because Yahweh had said He would destroy you. ^26 (AM)And I prayed to Yahweh and said, ‘O Lord Yahweh, do not destroy Your people, even Your inheritance, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. ²⁷ Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look at the stiff-neck of this people or at their wickedness or their sin, ²⁸ lest the land from which You brought us say, “^(AN)Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land which He had ^[i]promised them and because He hated them He has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” ²⁹ Yet they are Your people, even ^(AO)Your inheritance, whom You have brought out by Your ^(AP)great power and Your outstretched arm.’