Part 8

010:022 let us draw near with sincerity and unfaltering faith, having had our hearts sprinkled, once for all, from consciences oppressed with sin, and our bodies bathed in pure water.

010:023 Let us hold firmly to an unflinching avowal of our hope, for He is faithful who gave us the promises.

010:024 And let us bestow thought on one another with a view to arousing one another to brotherly love and right conduct;

010:025 not neglecting--as some habitually do--to meet together, but encouraging one another, and doing this all the more since you can see the day of Christ approaching.

010:026 For if we wilfully persist in sin after having received the full knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains in reserve any other sacrifice for sins.

010:027 There remains nothing but a certain awful expectation of judgement, and the fury of a fire which before long will devour the enemies of the truth.

010:028 Any one who bids defiance to the Law of Moses is put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

010:029 How much severer punishment, think you, will he be held to deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, has not regarded as holy that Covenant-blood with which he was set free from sin, and has insulted the Spirit from whom comes grace?

010:030 For we know who it is that has said, "Vengeance belongs to Me: I will pay back;" and again, "The Lord will be His people's judge."

010:031 It is an awful thing to fall into the hands of the ever-living God.

010:032 But continually recall to mind the days now past, when on being first enlightened you went through a great conflict and many sufferings.

010:033 This was partly through allowing yourselves to be made a public spectacle amid reproaches and persecutions, and partly through coming forward to share the sufferings of those who were thus treated.

010:034 For you not only showed sympathy with those who were imprisoned, but you even submitted with joy when your property was taken from you, being well aware that you have in your own selves a more valuable possession and one which will remain.

010:035 Therefore do not cast from you your confident hope, for it will receive a vast reward.

010:036 For you stand in need of patient endurance, so that, as the result of having done the will of God, you may receive the promised blessing.

010:037 For there is still but a short time and then "The coming One will come and will not delay.

010:038 But it is by faith that My righteous servant shall live; and if he shrinks back, My soul takes no pleasure in him."

010:039 But we are not people who shrink back and perish, but are among those who believe and gain possession of their souls.

011:001 Now faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope, and a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see.

011:002 For by it the saints of old won God's approval.

011:003 Through faith we understand that the worlds came into being, and still exist, at the command of God, so that what is seen does not owe its existence to that which is visible.

011:004 Through faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain did, and through this faith he obtained testimony that he was righteous, God giving the testimony by accepting his gifts; and through it, though he is dead, he still speaks.

011:005 Through faith Enoch was taken from the earth so that he did not see death, and he could not be found, because God had taken him; for before he was taken we have evidence that he truly pleased God.

011:006 But where there is no faith it is impossible truly to please Him; for the man who draws near to God must believe that there is a God and that He proves Himself a rewarder of those who earnestly try to find Him.

011:007 Through faith Noah, being divinely taught about things as yet unseen, reverently gave heed and built an ark for the safety of his family, and by this act he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which depends on faith.

011:008 Through faith Abraham, upon being called to leave home and go into a land which he was soon to receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing where he was going to.

011:009 Through faith he came and made his home for a time in a land which had been promised to him, as if in a foreign country, living in tents together with Isaac and Jacob, sharers with him in the same promise;

011:010 for he continually looked forward to the city which has the foundations, whose architect and builder is God.