should not attain to perfection.

CHAP. XII.

THEREFORE also seeing we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding
us, laying aside every weight, and that most easily besetting sin, let
us run with patience the race lying before us, (2)earnestly looking up
to Jesus the author and the finisher of faith; who, for the joy set
before him, endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God. (3)Consider then attentively him
that endured from sinners such opposition against himself, that ye be
not wearied out, fainting in your souls. (4)As yet ye have not resisted
unto blood, struggling against sin. (5)And have you forgotten the
exhortation which is addressed to you, as children, "My son, count not
lightly of the Lord's childlike correction, nor faint when under his
rebuke: (6)for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth[141]." (7)If ye patiently endure correction, God
carries himself towards you as his children: for who is the son whom
the father doth not correct? (8)If then ye are without correction, of
which all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not children.

(9)If then we have had the fathers of our flesh for correctors, and
reverenced them; shall we not much more be under subjection to the
Father of spirits, and live? (10)For they indeed for a few days as
seemed proper to themselves corrected us; but he for our own advantage,
that we might be partakers of his holiness. (11)Now all correction at
the moment seemeth not to be cause for joy, but for sorrow; but after a
while it produceth peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have
thereby been disciplined.

(12)Wherefore stretch out again the hands that hang down, and the
paralytic knees; (13)and make strait paths for your feet, that what is
halting may not be turned out of the way; but that it may rather be
healed.

(14)Earnestly seek peace with all men, and holiness, without which no
man shall see the Lord: (15)carefully observing lest any of you fail of
attaining the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up
trouble you, and by it many be defiled; (16)lest there be any
fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of bread
parted with his birthrights. (17)For ye know, that when afterwards he
wished to inherit the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place
for a change of _his father's_ mind, though he sought it earnestly with
tears. (18)For