Hebrews 11

⁷For we walk by faith, not by sight.

¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

²⁴For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?

²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.

⁷By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in godly fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

²²let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

⁷so that the proven character of your faith—more precious than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

⁸Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

³⁹These were all commended for their faith, yet they did not receive what was promised.

⁴By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous when God gave approval to his gifts. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

⁶By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the stars by the breath of His mouth.

⁵But they deliberately overlook the fact that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water,

³Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.

¹⁷As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the presence of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not yet exist.

²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.

¹¹“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and were created.”

³So in the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruit of the soil as an offering to the Lord,

⁴while Abel brought the best portions of the firstborn of his flock. And the Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,

¹¹This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

¹²Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain slay him? Because his own deeds were evil, while those of his brother were righteous.

²⁴to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

⁸The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

¹⁰“What have you done?” replied the Lord. “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.

³⁵And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

²¹When Enoch was 65 years old, he became the father of Methuselah.

²²And after he had become the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters.

¹⁴Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about them: “Behold, the Lord is coming with myriads of His holy ones

⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God. For anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

¹¹As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire with horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up into heaven in a whirlwind.

⁹For three and a half days all peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will view their bodies and will not permit them to be laid in a tomb.

¹⁰And those who dwell on the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and send one another gifts, because these two prophets had tormented them.

¹⁶“Look now,” they said to Elisha, “we your servants have fifty valiant men. Please let them go and search for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has taken him up and put him on one of the mountains or in one of the valleys.” “Do not send them,” Elisha replied.

¹⁷But when they pressed him to the point of embarrassment, he said, “Send them.” And they sent fifty men, who searched for three days but did not find Elijah.

¹⁷I love those who love me, and those who seek me early shall find me.

¹³You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

¹⁴I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the Lord. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

⁹As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands the intent of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

³Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

⁴Seek out the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.

³¹But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added unto you.

¹³Then God said to Noah, “The end of all living creatures has come before Me, because through them the earth is full of violence. Now behold, I will destroy both them and the earth.

²⁰who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In the ark a few people, only eight souls, were saved through water.

¹⁴then even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were in it, their righteousness could deliver only themselves, declares the Lord God.

²⁶Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man:

¹³For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world was not given through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.

⁵But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the hope of righteousness.

¹Then the Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.

²I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

²And Stephen declared: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

³and told him, ‘Leave your country and your kindred and go to the land I will show you.’

²⁴Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

²⁵The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because its foundation was on the rock.

⁷The Lord also told him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

⁸But Abram replied, “Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?”

¹⁸And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

¹⁵Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.

⁸From there Abram moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built an altar to the Lord, and he called on the name of the Lord.

¹⁸So Abram moved his tent and went to live near the Oaks of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord.

³From the Negev he journeyed from place to place toward Bethel, until he came to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly been pitched,

⁵He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised to give possession of the land to Abraham and his descendants, even though he did not yet have a child.

⁶God told him that his descendants would be foreigners in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.

¹⁷So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath.

³Stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.

⁴I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed,

¹⁴For here we do not have a permanent city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

¹For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

²²Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels

²In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?

⁴And every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.

²³Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.

²⁰Yet he did not waver through disbelief in the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,

²¹being fully persuaded that God was able to do what He had promised.

¹¹And Abraham and Sarah were already old and well along in years; Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.

¹²So she laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

¹Now the Lord attended to Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what He had promised.

²So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised.

³⁶Look, even Elizabeth your relative has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month.

⁵For this is how the holy women of the past adorned themselves. They put their hope in God and were submissive to their husbands,

⁶just as Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him lord. And you are her children if you do what is right and refuse to give way to fear.

¹⁷I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.

¹²But You have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to count.’”

¹⁰Yet the number of the Israelites will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. And it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

⁵And the Lord took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.”

²²As the hosts of heaven cannot be counted and as the sand on the seashore cannot be measured, so too will I multiply the descendants of My servant David and the Levites who minister before Me.”

⁴I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed,

⁴“I am a foreigner and an outsider among you. Give me a burial site among you so that I can bury my dead.”

¹²Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. For I am a foreigner dwelling with You, a stranger like all my fathers.

²⁷By faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.

²⁴For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?

³⁹These were all commended for their faith, yet they did not receive what was promised.

¹⁴But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? For everything comes from You, and from Your own hand we have given to You.

¹⁵For we are foreigners and strangers in Your presence, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.

¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

²³Not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

²⁴For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?

¹⁴For here we do not have a permanent city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

¹⁶Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

²³I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better indeed.

⁶Abraham replied, “Make sure that you do not take my son back there.

⁷The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me from my father’s house and my native land, who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’—He will send His angel before you so that you can take a wife for my son from there.

¹⁰Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.

¹⁴For here we do not have a permanent city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

³⁴Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

²In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?

²²Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels

¹⁶saying, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your only son,

²¹Was not our father Abraham justified by what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

²²You see that his faith was working with his actions, and his faith was perfected by what he did.

¹Some time later God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he answered.

²“Take your son,” God said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”

¹¹See how blessed we consider those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen the outcome from the Lord. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

⁶In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in various trials

⁷so that the proven character of your faith—more precious than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

¹⁰Because you have kept My command to persevere, I will also keep you from the hour of testing that is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

¹²But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.

⁷Nor because they are Abraham’s descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.”

¹⁹But God replied, “Your wife Sarah will indeed bear you a son, and you are to name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

¹⁷As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the presence of God, in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not yet exist.

¹⁸Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”

²⁸After Jesus had entered the house, the blind men came to Him. “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” He asked. “Yes, Lord,” they answered.

²⁰Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us,

¹³Then Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram in a thicket, caught by its horns. So he went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.

⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

⁵“Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told his servants. “The boy and I will go over there to worship, and then we will return to you.”

¹¹By faith Sarah, even though she was barren and beyond the proper age, was enabled to conceive a child, because she considered Him faithful who had promised.

¹²And so from one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

²⁷So he came near and kissed him. When Isaac smelled his clothing, he blessed him and said: “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.

²⁸May God give to you the dew of heaven and the richness of the earth—an abundance of grain and new wine.

²“Go at once to Paddan-aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel, and take a wife from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

³May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, so that you may become a company of peoples.

³¹“Swear to me,” Jacob said. So Joseph swore to him, and Israel bowed in worship at the head of his bed.

⁵And now your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here shall be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine.

⁶Any children born to you after them shall be yours, and they shall be called by the names of their brothers in the territory they inherit.

¹⁹Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear a solemn oath when he said, “God will surely attend to you, and then you must carry my bones with you from this place.”

²⁴Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely visit you and bring you up from this land to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

²⁵And Joseph made the sons of Israel take an oath and said, “God will surely attend to you, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.”

³²And the bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up out of Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the plot of land that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of silver. So it became an inheritance for Joseph’s descendants.

¹⁶Their bones were carried back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a price he paid in silver.

²²Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you may allow to live.”

¹⁶“When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them on the birthstools. If the child is a son, kill him; but if it is a daughter, let her live.”

⁶So we say with confidence: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

²and she conceived and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.

³But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

²⁸Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

¹⁴Do not fear, O Jacob, you worm, O few men of Israel. I will help you,” declares the Lord. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁰When the child had grown older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses and explained, “I drew him out of the water.”

¹¹One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

²¹When he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.

²²So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

¹⁰For better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

³Join me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

⁴A soldier refrains from entangling himself in civilian affairs, in order to please the one who enlisted him.

²¹Be careful not to turn to iniquity, for this you have preferred to affliction.

¹²Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you, as though something strange were happening to you.

¹³But rejoice that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed at the revelation of His glory.

¹⁷Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!

⁵the triumph of the wicked has been brief and the joy of the godless momentary?

³⁵So do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward.

⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God. For anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

¹⁴If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.

¹⁰sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

²For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every transgression and disobedience received its just punishment,

¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

¹³All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

¹⁴But the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “This thing I have done has surely become known.”

¹⁵When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well.

¹Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.

¹⁹Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who sought to kill you are dead.”

²⁸“Depart from me!” Pharaoh said to Moses. “Make sure you never see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you will die.”

²⁹“As you say,” Moses replied, “I will never see your face again.”

²¹Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and told them, “Go at once and select for yourselves a lamb for each family, and slaughter the Passover lamb.

²²Take a cluster of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and brush the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out the door of his house until morning.

¹⁹For when Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people,

²according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

²⁴to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

³Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man must select a lamb for his family, one per household.

⁴If the household is too small for a whole lamb, they are to share with the nearest neighbor based on the number of people, and apportion the lamb accordingly.

¹³But Moses told the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the Lord’s salvation, which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.

⁹He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; He led them through the depths as through a desert.

¹⁰He saved them from the hand that hated them; He redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

¹³He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

⁸Were You angry at the rivers, O Lord? Was Your wrath against the streams? Did You rage against the sea when You rode on Your horses, on Your chariots of salvation?

⁹You brandished Your bow; You called for many arrows. Selah You split the earth with rivers.

¹¹Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them,

¹²who sent His glorious arm to lead them by the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to gain for Himself everlasting renown,

⁹Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Wake up as in days past, as in generations of old. Was it not You who cut Rahab to pieces, who pierced through the dragon?

¹⁰Was it not You who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea for the redeemed to cross over?

³March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.

⁴Have seven priests carry seven rams’ horns in front of the ark. Then on the seventh day, march around the city seven times, while the priests blow the horns.

⁴The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the flesh. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

⁵We demolish arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

²⁵In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute justified by her actions when she welcomed the spies and sent them off on another route?

²²Meanwhile, Joshua told the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the house of the prostitute and bring out the woman and all who are with her, just as you promised her.”

²³So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.

⁵Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,

¹Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, inspect the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

²And it was reported to the king of Jericho: “Behold, some men of Israel have come here tonight to spy out the land.”

¹This is the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham:

¹Now after the death of His servant Moses, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying,

¹Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have selected from his sons a king for Myself.”

²⁰So in the course of time, Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked for him from the Lord.”

¹³So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. Then Samuel set out and went to Ramah.

¹Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord, so He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

²Now there was a man from Zorah named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, whose wife was barren and had no children.

¹Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor; he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his father.

²And Gilead’s wife bore him sons who grew up, drove Jephthah out, and said to him, “You shall have no inheritance in our father’s house, because you are the son of another woman.”

²⁵There are many more things that Jesus did. If all of them were written down, I suppose that not even the world itself would have space for the books that would be written.

¹²Then you will not be sluggish, but will imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

¹³When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself,

¹Of David. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.

²He is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer. He is my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.

¹⁷But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles would hear it. So I was delivered from the mouth of the lion.

³⁶You need to persevere, so that after you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.

⁴By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous when God gave approval to his gifts. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

⁵By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.

⁴David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years.

⁵In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah.

⁵¹David ran and stood over him. He grabbed the Philistine’s sword and pulled it from its sheath and killed him, and he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.

⁵²Then the men of Israel and Judah charged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. And the bodies of the Philistines were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron.

¹⁶“Do not be afraid,” Elisha answered, “for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

¹⁷Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw that the hills were full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

¹⁰to Him who gives victory to kings, who frees His servant David from the deadly sword.

⁸And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter, and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

²⁰In response, King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out to heaven in prayer,

²¹and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

⁹But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me.

¹⁰That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

²⁷When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.”

²⁸Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”

²²And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah, and the child’s life returned to him, and he lived.

²³Then Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. “Look, your son is alive,” Elijah declared.

¹¹and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

⁴¹Peter took her by the hand and helped her up. Then he called the saints and widows and presented her to them alive.

⁵⁴When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

¹⁵and I have the same hope in God that they themselves cherish, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

²he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord.

²⁰So Joseph’s master took him and had him thrown into the prison where the king’s prisoners were confined. While Joseph was there in the prison,

¹⁵The officials were angry with Jeremiah, and they beat him and placed him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for it had been made into a prison.

¹⁶So Jeremiah went into a cell in the dungeon and remained there a long time.

¹⁰And the couriers traveled from city to city through the land of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun, but the people scorned and mocked them.

¹⁰Asa was angry with the seer and became so enraged over this matter that he put the man in prison. And at the same time Asa oppressed some of the people.

²At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard, which was in the palace of the king of Judah.

³For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying: “Why are you prophesying like this? You claim that the Lord says, ‘Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it.

²¹But they conspired against Zechariah, and by order of the king, they stoned him in the courtyard of the house of the Lord.

²³They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him put to the sword and his body thrown into the burial place of the common people.

¹⁰“I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.”

¹³And the two scoundrels came in and sat opposite Naboth, and these men testified against him before the people, saying, “Naboth has cursed both God and the king!” So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death.

¹⁴Then they sent word to Jezebel: “Naboth has been stoned to death.”

⁸“He was a hairy man,” they answered, “with a leather belt around his waist.” “It was Elijah the Tishbite,” said the king.

¹⁰But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them testify, ‘You have cursed both God and the king!’ Then take him out and stone him to death.”

⁴for when Jezebel had slaughtered the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty men per cave, providing them with food and water.)

¹So David left Gath and took refuge in the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and the rest of his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there.

⁹There Elijah entered a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

¹The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous are taken away from the presence of evil.

¹After Saul had returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, “David is in the wilderness of En-gedi.”

²So Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel and went to look for David and his men in the region of the Rocks of the Wild Goats.

¹³Was it not reported to my lord what I did when Jezebel slaughtered the prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred prophets of the Lord, fifty men per cave, and I provided them with food and water.

²³Then Jesus turned to the disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.

²⁴For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

¹³All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

²This is why the ancients were commended.

¹²It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they foretold the things now announced by those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

¹¹Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.

⁶Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises.

¹¹Day after day every priest stands to minister and to offer again and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

¹²But when this Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God.

⁹And having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him

¹⁹(for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.

²³So it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.