Hebrews 12
1 Therefore we also, having so large [a] surrounding us cloud of witnesses, putting off every weight and easily distracting sin, through endurance let us be running the contest set before us, 2 fixing one's eyes on the captain and completer1 of faith, Jesus, who instead of2 the joy set before him, endured the cross, slighting [the] shame, and he has sat at the right [hand] of the throne of God. 3 For consider such endurance of hostility of sinners against himself, in order that you not be weary in your psyche-lives3 , giving out. 4 Not yet until blood have you struggling [ones] resisted against sin, 5 and [not yet] have you forgotten altogether the encouragement which to you as sons he speaks:My son, be not thinking lightly of the discipline4 of the Lord
Nor when being corrected be wearying from him.
6 For whom the Lord agape-loves he disciplines5,
He flogs every son whom he receives.
7 For discipline6 be enduring; as sons God deals with you. For who is son whom [his] father does not discipline7? 8 But if you are without discipline8, of which partakers they are become, then bastards9 and not sons are you. 9 Furthermore we were having our fathers after the flesh discipliners10 and we were respecting them; should we not more rather be subject to the father of [our] spirits and live? 10 For on the one hand for [a] few days according to what seems good to them were they disciplining11 [us], but on the other hand [it is] for profit to those sharing in his holiness. 11 On the one hand every discipline12 for the present does not seem to be of joy but of pain, but on the other hand afterwards they yield the peaceable fruit of justness to those exercised through it. 12 Therefore make straight the weakened hand and disabled knee, 13 and be making [a] straight course for your feet, in order that what is lame be not put out of joint, but rather be healed. 14 Be pursuing peace with all, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, 15 while taking care [that] someone not be missing from the grace of God, [that] someone not be sprouting up root of bitterness [lest] he cause trouble and through this many be stained, 16 [that] someone not be [a] fornicator or profane as Esau, who in exchange for one meal yielded his own birthright. 17 For you see that afterwards when wanting to inherit the promise, he was rejected, for place for repentance was not found, though with tears he sought it. 18 For you are come by touching and having been burned by fire and by darkness and by gloom and by whirlwind, 19 and by sound of trumpet and by voice of words, which [sounds] those having heard requested [that more] word not be added to them. 20 For they were not bearing the [thing] commanded: If even wild beast touch the mountain, it will be stoned. 21 And so fearful was the sight Moses said, I am terrified and trembling. 22 But you are come to Zion, the mountain and city of the zoe-living13 God, heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the festal assembly, 23 and to the assembly14 of the first-born enrolled in heaven, and to the judge of all, God, and the spirits of completed15 justness, 24 and to the mediator of the new contract16, Jesus, and to blood of sprinkling speaking greater [things] beside Abel. 25 Be seeing [that] you not reject the [things] spoken. For if these did not escape rejecting upon earth the warning, rather more we repudiating that from [the] heavens [will not escape], 26 whose voice then shook the earth, but now promised saying,
Yet once [more] I will shake not only the earth but also heaven.
27 But the "Yet once [more]" shows the removal of shakings as done, in order that the [things] not being shaken remain. 28 Therefore receiving [an] unshakable kingdom, let us have grace, through which let us be ministering acceptable to God, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God [is a] consuming fire.
1or "perfecter"
2or "in exchange for," "at the price of"
3from PSYCHE (ψυχη): an individual manifestation of life/consciousness. Animals have PSYCHEs as well as humans. Contrast ZOE (ζωη)—Life 'collectively', interdependent, interconnected.
4or "education"
5or "educates"
6or "education"
7or "educate"
8or "education"
9illegitamate"
10or "educators"
11or "educating"
12or "education"
13from ZOE "ZOH-ay" (ζωη)—Life 'collectively', interdependent, interconnected. Although it means 'life' in the conventional sense (for example: Matt.9:18, Matt.27:63, Luke.2:36, Acts.25:24, Rom.7:2, 2Cor.1:8, 1Thes.4:17, 1Tim.5:10, Rev.19:20), Jesus uses ZOE exclusively of 'life eternal' (with the possible exceptions of Luke.15:13, Luke.16:25). The other N.T. writers use ZOE in both senses—temporal and eternal, generally clear from the context. The Father is the 'zoe-living God' (see Matt.16:16). The Septuagint (LXX) in Gen.2:7 has "...[God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of zoe-life, and the man became a zoe-living psyche-life" (and see 1Cor.15:45); and Gen.3:20 (LXX) "And Adam called his wife's name ZOE, because she was the mother of all zoe-living." Contrast PSYCHE (ψυχη): an individual manifestation of life/consciousness. See John.12:25 where both ZOE and PSYCHE occur. Greek also has the word BIOS (βιoς ) for 'life' in the sense of biological processes.
14EKKLESIA (εκκλησια) from "called out". Appears 114 times in the N.T., but only in two places in the Gospels ( Matt.16:18 (twice) and Matt.18:17 (twice)). It's worth noting that when Jesus uses the term EKKLESIA, Christian community as we know it didn't yet exist—there were only the disciples. EKKLESIA is apparently different from 'synagogue' (SYNAGOGE (συναγωγη) which occurs 56 times in the N.T.) EKKLESIA is used in secular Greek literature of a popular assembly 'called to assemble', and also of those 'called' to a cult. EKKLESIA is used frequently in the N.T. outside of the Gospels to refer to Christian communities, but in Acts.7:38 it is used of the people of Israel led through the desert by Moses, and in Acts.19:32 ff. of a secular assembly. Thus, all told, the common translation of EKKLESIA as 'church' doesn't really reflect 1st century usage—it seems to mean more like 'a group of people assembled for some specific purpose'.
15or "perfected"
16or "testament", "covenant"