32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light,(A) when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering.(B) 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution;(C) at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated.(D) 34 You suffered along with those in prison(E) and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.(F) 35 So do not throw away your confidence;(G) it will be richly rewarded.

36 You need to persevere(H) so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.(I) 37 For,

“In just a little while,
    he who is coming(J) will come
    and will not delay.”[a](K)

38 And,

“But my righteous[b] one will live by faith.(L)
    And I take no pleasure
    in the one who shrinks back.”[c](M)

39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

Faith in Action

11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for(N) and assurance about what we do not see.(O) This is what the ancients were commended for.(P)

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command,(Q) so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Footnotes

  1. Hebrews 10:37 Isaiah 26:20; Hab. 2:3
  2. Hebrews 10:38 Some early manuscripts But the righteous
  3. Hebrews 10:38 Hab. 2:4 (see Septuagint)

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised;(A) they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,(B) admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.(C) 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.(D) 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.(E) Therefore God is not ashamed(F) to be called their God,(G) for he has prepared a city(H) for them.

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