15. looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;
16. lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.
17. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.
18. For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest,
19. and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.
20. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.”
21. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”)
22. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,
23. to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24. to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.