A Call to Endurance
(2 Timothy 2:1–13)

1Wherefore, since we are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every incumbrance, and the sin which does so easily embarrass us, and let us pursue with constancy the course that is proposed to us: 2having Jesus in our view, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down on the right hand of the throne of God.

3for you should consider how he endured such opposition from sinners against himself, lest ye be tired out, and quite despond.

God Disciplines His Sons

4You have not yet resisted unto death, striving against sin.

5have you forgot the exhortation which is address'd to you, as to children? "my son, despise not thou the chastning of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.

6for whom the Lord loveth, he chastises, and scourgeth every son whom he receives."

7if you are to endure chastisement, God treats you as his children: for where's the son whom his father does not chastise? 8but if you were exempted from that discipline which others are subject to, then are you bastards, and not sons. 9when our natural parents corrected us, we gave them reverence: is it not much more reasonable to be in subjection to the father of spirits, in order to have life? 10their discipline was temporary, and the effect of humour; whereas God chastises us for our advantage, to make us partakers of his holiness. 11'tis true, all correction at first is far from appearing agreeable, yet afterward it produces the agreeable fruits of virtue in those who are exercised thereby.

12Wherefore "strengthen your weak hands and your feeble knees. 13clear the way for your feet, lest that which is lame should be quite out of joint, instead of being redress'd."

A Call to Holiness
(1 Peter 1:13–21)

14seek peace with all men, and sanctity of life, without which no man shall see the Lord: 15take care not to deprive yourselves of the divine favour: and that no poisonous root spring up, and spread a general infection among you. 16let there be no licentious or profane person, such as Esau, "who sold his birth-right, for a single mess." 17for you know that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: not being able to make Isaac to retract, though he importun'd him with tears.

An Unshakable Kingdom

18You do not approach to any thing corporeal, to scorching fire, to smoak, darkness, and tempest, 19nor to the sound of trumpets, and the voice which pronounc'd such words, that they who heard, intreated they might hear it no more. 20nor could they endure that threat, "if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned." 21and so terrible was the appearance, that Moses cry'd out, "I tremble with the fright." 22but you are come to mount Sion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable congress of angels, to the general assembly, 23the church of the first-born who are enroll'd in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the aspersion of that blood which cries for pardon, and not for vengeance as that of Abel.

25Take care that you be not deaf to him that speaketh: for if they did not escape, who disregarded the oracles pronounc'd on earth, much less shall we escape, if we turn away from him that delivered the oracles from heaven: 26whose voice then shook the earth: but he has promised to do it now, saying, " yet once more I will shake, not the earth only, but heaven too." 27and this expression, yet once more" signifies the abolition of those changeable things which were only contriv'd, that what is unalterable might lastingly succeed. 28since then we are entring into a kingdom which cannot be changed, let us maintain the divine favour, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and fear. 29for "our God is a consuming fire."