7. So accept your sufferings as if they were a father’s punishment. God does these things to you as a father punishing his sons. All sons are punished by their fathers.
8. If you are never punished (and every son must be punished), you are not true children and not really sons.
9. We have all had fathers here on earth who punished us. And we respected our fathers. So it is even more important that we accept punishment from the Father of our spirits. If we do this, we will have life.
10. Our fathers on earth punished us for a short time. They punished us the way they thought was best. But God punishes us to help us, so that we can become holy as he is.
11. We do not enjoy punishment. Being punished is painful at the time. But later, after we have learned from being punished, we have peace, because we start living in the right way.
12. You have become weak. So make yourselves strong again.
13. Keep on the right path so the weak will not stumble but rather be strengthened.
14. Try to live in peace with all people. And try to live lives free from sin. If anyone’s life is not holy, he will never see the Lord.
15. Be careful that no one fails to get God’s grace. Be careful that no one becomes like a bitter weed growing among you. A person like that can ruin all of you.
16. Be careful that no one takes part in sexual sin. And be careful that no person is unholy like Esau. He sold all his rights as the oldest son for a single meal.
17. You remember that after Esau did this, he wanted to get his father’s blessing. He wanted this blessing so much that he cried. But his father refused to give him the blessing, because Esau could find no way to change what he had done.
18. You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire. You have not come to darkness, sadness and storms.
19. You have not come to the noise of a trumpet or to the sound of a voice. When the people of Israel heard the voice, they begged not to have to hear another word.
20. They did not want to hear the command: “If anything, even an animal, touches the mountain, it must be put to death with stones.”