2007 awake on how parents can safeguard their Children from predators

How to Protect Your Children

FEW of us want to dwell on the subject of sexual abuse of children. Parents shudder at the very thought of it! Such abuse, however, is a frightening and unpleasant reality in today’s world, and its effects on children can be devastating. Is the matter worth considering? Well, what would you be willing to give for the sake of your child’s safety? Learning about the unpleasant realities of abuse is surely a small price to pay. Such knowledge can really make a difference.

Do not let the plague of abuse rob you of your courage. At the very least, you have power that your child does not have—strengths that it will take years, even decades, for your child to gain. The passing years have brought you a fund of knowledge, experience, and wisdom. The key is to enhance those strengths and put them to use in protecting your child. We will discuss three basic steps that every parent can take. They are as follows: (1) Become your child’s first line of defense against abuse, (2) give your child some needed background education, and (3) equip your child with some basic protective tools.

Are You the First Line of Defense?

The primary responsibility for protecting children against abuse belongs to parents, not to children. So educating parents comes before educating children. If you are a parent, there are a few things you need to know about child abuse. You need to know who abuse children and how they go about it. Parents often think of molesters as strangers who lurk in the shadows, seeking ways to kidnap and rape children. Such monsters certainly do exist. The news media bring them to our attention very often. However, they are relatively rare. In about 90 percent of the cases of sexual abuse of a child, the perpetrator is someone the child already knows and trusts.

Naturally, you do not want to believe that an affable neighbor, teacher, health-care worker, coach, or relative could lust after your child. In truth, most people are not like that. There is no need to become suspicious of everybody around you. Still, you can protect your child by learning how the typical abuser operates.—See the box on page 6.

Knowing such tactics can make you, the parent, better prepared to act as the first line of defense. For instance, if someone who appears more interested in children than in adults singles out your child for special attention and gifts or offers free babysitting or private excursions with your child, what will you do? Decide that the person must be a molester? No. Do not be quick to jump to conclusions. Such behavior may be quite innocent. Nonetheless, it can put you on the alert. The Bible says: “Anyone inexperienced puts faith in every word, but the shrewd one considers his steps.”—Proverbs 14:15.

Remember, any offer that sounds too good to be true may be just that. Carefully screen anyone who volunteers to spend time alone with your child. Let such an individual know that you are likely to check on your child at any time. Melissa and Brad, young parents of three boys, are cautious about leaving a child alone with an adult. When one son had music lessons at home, Melissa told the instructor: “I’ll be in and out of the room while you’re here.” Such vigilance may sound extreme, but these parents would rather be safe than sorry.

Be actively involved in your child’s activities, friendships, and schoolwork. Learn all the details about any planned excursion. One mental-health professional who spent 33 years working with cases of sexual abuse notes that he has seen countless cases that could have been prevented by simple vigilance on the parents’ part. He quotes one convicted molester as saying: “Parents literally give us their children. . . . They sure made it easy for me.” Remember, most molesters prefer easy targets. Parents who are actively involved in their children’s lives make their children difficult targets.

Another way to act as your child’s first line of defense is to be a good listener. Children will rarely disclose abuse directly; they are too ashamed and worried about the reaction. So listen carefully, even for subtle clues.* If your child says something that concerns you, calmly use questions to draw him out.* If he says that he does not want a certain babysitter to come back, ask why. If he says that an adult plays funny games with him, ask him: “What kind of game? What does he do?” If he complains that someone tickled him, ask him, “Where did he tickle you?” Do not be quick to dismiss a child’s answers. Abusers tell a child that no one will believe him; all too often, that is true. And if a child has been abused, being believed and supported by a parent is a big step toward recovery.

Be your child’s first line of defense
Give Your Child Background Education

One reference work on the subject of child abuse quotes a convicted molester as saying: “Give me a kid who knows nothing about sex, and you’ve given me my next victim.” Those chilling words are a useful reminder to parents. Children who are ignorant about sex are much easier for molesters to fool. The Bible says that knowledge and wisdom can deliver us “from the man speaking perverse things.” (Proverbs 2:10-12) Is that not what you want for your child? Then, as your second basic step in protecting him, do not hold back from teaching him about this important subject.

How, though, do you go about it? More than a few parents find the subject of sex a bit awkward to discuss with children. Your child may find the subject even more awkward, and he is not likely to bring it up with you. So take the initiative. Melissa says: “We started early, with naming the body parts. We used real words, not baby words, to show them that there is nothing funny or shameful about any part of their body.” Instruction about abuse follows naturally. Many parents simply tell their children that the parts of their body that a bathing suit covers are private and special.

Says Heather, mentioned in the preceding article: “Scott and I told our son that his penis is private, personal, and not a toy. It’s not for anyone to play with—not for Mommy, not for Daddy, not even for a doctor. When we take him to the doctor, I explain that he’s only going to make sure everything is OK, and that’s why he may touch there.” Both parents take part in these little talks from time to time, and they assure the child that he can always come to them and tell them if anyone touches him in a way that’s wrong or makes him feel uncomfortable. Experts in child care and abuse prevention recommend that all parents have similar talks with their children.

Many have found the book Learn From the Great Teacher* to be a real help in teaching this subject. Chapter 32, “How Jesus Was Protected,” has a direct yet comforting message for children on the dangers of abuse and the importance of staying safe. “The book has given us a perfect way to reinforce what we have told our children personally,” says Melissa.

In today’s world children need to know that there are some people who want to touch children or get children to touch them in ways that are wrong. These warnings need not fill children with fear or make them distrust all adults. “It’s just a safety message,” says Heather. “And it’s one message among many others, most of them having nothing to do with abuse. It hasn’t made my son fearful at all.”

Your child’s education should include a balanced view of obedience. Teaching a child to obey is an important and difficult lesson. (Colossians 3:20) However, such lessons can go too far. If a child is taught that he must always obey any adult, regardless of the circumstances, he is vulnerable to abuse. Molesters are quick to notice when children are overly compliant. Wise parents teach their children that obedience is relative. For Christians, that is not as complicated as it may sound. It simply means saying to them: “If anybody tells you to do something that Jehovah God says is wrong, you don’t have to do it. Even Mommy or Daddy should never tell you to do something that Jehovah says is wrong. And you can always tell either Mommy or Daddy if someone tries to get you to do something wrong.”

Finally, let your child know that no one should ask him to keep a secret from you. Tell him that if anyone asks him to keep any kind of secret from you, he should always come and let you know. No matter what he is told—even if scary threats are made or he has done something wrong himself—it is always OK to come to Mommy or Daddy and tell them all about it. Such instruction need not scare your child. You can reassure him that most people would never do such things—touch him where they shouldn’t, ask him to disobey God, or ask him to keep a secret. Like a planned escape route in case of fire, these are just-in-case messages and will probably never be needed.

Give your child background education
Equip Your Child With Some Basic Protective Tools

The third step we will discuss is to give your child some simple actions to take in case someone tries to take advantage of him when you are not there. One method that is often recommended is like a game. Parents ask “What if . . . ?” and the child answers. You might say, “What if we were at the store together and we got separated? How would you find me?” The child’s answer may not be exactly what you would hope for, but you can guide him along with further questions, such as “Can you think of anything you could do that would be safer?”

You can use similar questions to ask a child what the safest response would be if someone tried to touch him in a wrong way. If the child is easily alarmed by such questions, you might try telling a story about another child. For example: “A little girl is with a relative she likes, but then he tries to touch her where he shouldn’t. What do you think she should do to stay safe?”

Equip your child with basic protective tools
What should you teach your child to do in situations like the one above? Notes one author: “A firm ‘No!’ or ‘Don’t do that!’ or ‘Leave me alone!’ does wonders to frighten the seductive offender into retreat and into rethinking his or her choice of victim.” Help your child act out brief scenarios so that he feels confident to refuse loudly, get away quickly, and report to you whatever has happened. A child who seems to understand the training thoroughly may easily forget it within a few weeks or months. So repeat this training regularly.

All the child’s direct caregivers, including the males—whether father, stepfather, or other male relatives—should be part of these discussions. Why? Because all involved in such teaching are, in effect, promising the child that they will never commit such acts of abuse. Sadly, much sexual abuse occurs right within the confines of the family. The following article will discuss how you can make your family a safe haven in an abusive world.

Experts note that many abused children give nonverbal clues that something is wrong. For example, if a child suddenly regresses to behavior he had outgrown some time earlier, such as bed-wetting, clinginess, or fear of being alone, he may be sending a signal that something serious is upsetting him. Such symptoms should not be taken as definite proof of abuse. Calmly draw out your child to learn the cause of the distress so that you can offer comfort, reassurance, and protection.

For the sake of simplicity, both the abuser and the victim are referred to here as males. Regardless of gender, though, the same principles apply.

Published by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

SEXUAL ABUSE—A GLOBAL PROBLEM
In 2006 the secretary-general of the United Nations transmitted to the UN General Assembly a world report on violence against children that had been compiled by an independent expert for the UN. During a recent year, according to the report, an estimated 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 years of age experienced “forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence.” Those numbers are staggering, but the report notes: “This is certainly an underestimate.” A review of studies from 21 countries suggested that in some places as many as 36 percent of women and 29 percent of men had been subjected to some form of sexual victimization in childhood. The majority of the perpetrators were relatives!
A PATTERN OF SEDUCTION
An abuser is likely to be too clever to use force on his victims. Rather, he may prefer to seduce children gradually. He begins by selecting a target, often a child who seems vulnerable and trusting, thus relatively easy to control. Next, he singles out that child for special attention. He may also try to win the trust of the child’s parents. Molesters are often expert at pretending to be sincerely interested in the child and the family.
In time, the molester will begin grooming the child for abuse. He gradually becomes more physical with the child through innocent-looking displays of affection, playful wrestling, and tickling. He may give generous gifts and begin to separate the child from friends, siblings, and parents, in order to spend time alone with the child. At some point he may ask the child to keep some minor secret from the parents—perhaps a gift or plans for some future excursion. Such tactics set the stage for seduction. When the abuser has won the child’s trust and that of the parents, he is ready to make his move.
Again, he is likely to be subtle about it rather than violent or forceful. He may exploit the child’s natural curiosity about sex, offering to act as a “teacher,” or he may suggest that they play a “special game” together that only they will know about. He may try exposing the child to pornography in order to make such behavior seem normal.
If he succeeds in molesting the child, he is now eager to ensure that the child does not tell anyone about it. He may use a variety of tactics, including threats, blackmail, and blame, or perhaps a combination of these. For example, he may say: “It’s your fault. You didn’t tell me to stop.” He may add: “If you tell your parents, they’ll call the police and send me to jail forever.” Or he may say: “It’s our secret. If you tell, no one will believe you. If your parents ever do find out, I will hurt them.” There is no end to the devious and malicious tactics such individuals will try.

Hebrews 8-13 New Jerusalem Bible

8)1 The principal point of all that we have said is that we have a high priest of exactly this kind. He has taken his seat at the right of the throne of divine Majesty in the heavens,

2 and he is the minister of the sanctuary and of the true Tent which the Lord, and not any man, set up.

3 Every high priest is constituted to offer gifts and sacrifices, and so this one too must have something to offer.

4 In fact, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are others who make the offerings laid down by the Law,

5 though these maintain the service only of a model or a reflection of the heavenly realities; just as Moses, when he had the Tent to build, was warned by God who said: See that you work to the design that was shown you on the mountain.

6 As it is, he has been given a ministry as far superior as is the covenant of which he is the mediator, which is founded on better promises.

7 If that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no room for a second one to replace it.

8 And in fact God does find fault with them; he says: Look, the days are coming, the Lord declares, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah,

9 but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors, the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, which covenant of mine they broke, and I too abandoned them, the Lord declares.

10 No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel, when those days have come, the Lord declares: In their minds I shall plant my laws writing them on their hearts. Then I shall be their God, and they shall be my people.

11 There will be no further need for each to teach his neighbour, and each his brother, saying 'Learn to know the Lord!' No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest,

12 since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sins to mind.

13 By speaking of a new covenant, he implies that the first one is old. And anything old and ageing is ready to disappear.

9)1 The first covenant also had its laws governing worship and its sanctuary, a sanctuary on this earth.

2 There was a tent which comprised two compartments: the first, in which the lamp-stand, the table and the loaves of permanent offering were kept, was called the Holy Place;

3 then beyond the second veil, a second compartment which was called the Holy of Holies

4 to which belonged the gold altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant, plated all over with gold. In this were kept the gold jar containing the manna, Aaron's branch that grew the buds, and the tables of the covenant.

5 On top of it were the glorious winged creatures, overshadowing the throne of mercy. This is not the time to go into detail about this.

6 Under these provisions, priests go regularly into the outer tent to carry out their acts of worship,

7 but the second tent is entered only once a year, and then only by the high priest who takes in the blood to make an offering for his own and the people's faults of inadvertence.

8 By this, the Holy Spirit means us to see that as long as the old tent stands, the way into the holy place is not opened up;

9 it is a symbol for this present time. None of the gifts and sacrifices offered under these regulations can possibly bring any worshipper to perfection in his conscience;

10 they are rules about outward life, connected with food and drink and washing at various times, which are in force only until the time comes to set things right.

11 But now Christ has come, as the high priest of all the blessings which were to come. He has passed through the greater, the more perfect tent, not made by human hands, that is, not of this created order;

12 and he has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bull calves, but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption.

13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on those who have incurred defilement, may restore their bodily purity.

14 How much more will the blood of Christ, who offered himself, blameless as he was, to God through the eternal Spirit, purify our conscience from dead actions so that we can worship the living God.

15 This makes him the mediator of a new covenant, so that, now that a death has occurred to redeem the sins committed under an earlier covenant, those who have been called to an eternal inheritance may receive the promise.

16 Now wherever a will is in question, the death of the testator must be established;

17 a testament comes into effect only after a death, since it has no force while the testator is still alive.

18 That is why even the earlier covenant was inaugurated with blood,

19 and why, after Moses had promulgated all the commandments of the Law to the people, he took the calves' blood, the goats' blood and some water, and with these he sprinkled the book itself and all the people, using scarlet wool and hyssop;

20 saying as he did so: This is the blood of the covenant that God has made with you.

21 And he sprinkled both the tent and all the liturgical vessels with blood in the same way.

22 In fact, according to the Law, practically every purification takes place by means of blood; and if there is no shedding of blood, there is no remission.

23 Only the copies of heavenly things are purified in this way; the heavenly things themselves have to be purified by a higher sort of sacrifice than this.

24 It is not as though Christ had entered a man-made sanctuary which was merely a model of the real one; he entered heaven itself, so that he now appears in the presence of God on our behalf.

25 And he does not have to offer himself again and again, as the high priest goes into the sanctuary year after year with the blood that is not his own,

26 or else he would have had to suffer over and over again since the world began. As it is, he has made his appearance once and for all, at the end of the last age, to do away with sin by sacrificing himself.

27 Since human beings die only once, after which comes judgement,

28 so Christ too, having offered himself only once to bear the sin of many, will manifest himself a second time, sin being no more, to those who are waiting for him, to bring them salvation.

10)1 So, since the Law contains no more than a reflection of the good things which were still to come, and no true image of them, it is quite incapable of bringing the worshippers to perfection, by means of the same sacrifices repeatedly offered year after year.

2 Otherwise, surely the offering of them would have stopped, because the worshippers, when they had been purified once, would have no awareness of sins.

3 But in fact the sins are recalled year after year in the sacrifices.

4 Bulls' blood and goats' blood are incapable of taking away sins,

5 and that is why he said, on coming into the world: You wanted no sacrifice or cereal offering, but you gave me a body.

6 You took no pleasure in burnt offering or sacrifice for sin;

7 then I said, 'Here I am, I am coming,' in the scroll of the book it is written of me, to do your will, God.

8 He says first You did not want what the Law lays down as the things to be offered, that is: the sacrifices, the cereal offerings, the burnt offerings and the sacrifices for sin, and you took no pleasure in them;

9 and then he says: Here I am! I am coming to do your will. He is abolishing the first sort to establish the second.

10 And this will was for us to be made holy by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ made once and for all.

11 Every priest stands at his duties every day, offering over and over again the same sacrifices which are quite incapable of taking away sins.

12 He, on the other hand, has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken his seat for ever, at the right hand of God,

13 where he is now waiting till his enemies are made his footstool.

14 By virtue of that one single offering, he has achieved the eternal perfection of all who are sanctified.

15 The Holy Spirit attests this to us, for after saying:

16 No, this is the covenant I will make with them, when those days have come. the Lord says: In their minds I will plant my Laws writing them on their hearts,

17 and I shall never more call their sins to mind, or their offences.

18 When these have been forgiven, there can be no more sin offerings.

19 We have then, brothers, complete confidence through the blood of Jesus in entering the sanctuary,

20 by a new way which he has opened for us, a living opening through the curtain, that is to say, his flesh.

21 And we have the high priest over all the sanctuary of God.

22 So as we go in, let us be sincere in heart and filled with faith, our hearts sprinkled and free from any trace of bad conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

23 Let us keep firm in the hope we profess, because the one who made the promise is trustworthy.

24 Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a response in love and good works.

25 Do not absent yourself from your own assemblies, as some do, but encourage each other; the more so as you see the Day drawing near.

26 If, after we have been given knowledge of the truth, we should deliberately commit any sins, then there is no longer any sacrifice for them.

27 There is left only the dreadful prospect of judgement and of the fiery wrath that is to devour your enemies.

28 Anyone who disregards the Law of Moses is ruthlessly put to death on the word of two witnesses or three;

29 and you may be sure that anyone who tramples on the Son of God, and who treats the blood of the covenant which sanctified him as if it were not holy, and who insults the Spirit of grace, will be condemned to a far severer punishment.

30 We are all aware who it was that said: Vengeance is mine; I will pay them back. And again: The Lord will vindicate his people.

31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

32 Remember the great challenge of the sufferings that you had to meet after you received the light, in earlier days;

33 sometimes by being yourselves publicly exposed to humiliations and violence, and sometimes as associates of others who were treated in the same way.

34 For you not only shared in the sufferings of those who were in prison, but you accepted with joy being stripped of your belongings, knowing that you owned something that was better and lasting.

35 Do not lose your fearlessness now, then, since the reward is so great.

36 You will need perseverance if you are to do God's will and gain what he has promised.

37 Only a little while now, a very little while, for come he certainly will before too long.

38 My upright person will live through faith but if he draws back, my soul will take no pleasure in him.

39 We are not the sort of people who draw back, and are lost by it; we are the sort who keep faith until our souls are saved.

11)1 Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of realities that are unseen.

2 It is for their faith that our ancestors are acknowledged.

3 It is by faith that we understand that the ages were created by a word from God, so that from the invisible the visible world came to be.

4 It was because of his faith that Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain, and for that he was acknowledged as upright when God himself made acknowledgement of his offerings. Though he is dead, he still speaks by faith.

5 It was because of his faith that Enoch was taken up and did not experience death: he was no more, because God took him; because before his assumption he was acknowledged to have pleased God.

6 Now it is impossible to please God without faith, since anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and rewards those who seek him.

7 It was through his faith that Noah, when he had been warned by God of something that had never been seen before, took care to build an ark to save his family. His faith was a judgement on the world, and he was able to claim the uprightness which comes from faith.

8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed the call to set out for a country that was the inheritance given to him and his descendants, and that he set out without knowing where he was going.

9 By faith he sojourned in the Promised Land as though it were not his, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

10 He looked forward to the well-founded city, designed and built by God.

11 It was equally by faith that Sarah, in spite of being past the age, was made able to conceive, because she believed that he who had made the promise was faithful to it.

12 Because of this, there came from one man, and one who already had the mark of death on him, descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore which cannot be counted.

13 All these died in faith, before receiving any of the things that had been promised, but they saw them in the far distance and welcomed them, recognising that they were only strangers and nomads on earth.

14 People who use such terms about themselves make it quite plain that they are in search of a homeland.

15 If they had meant the country they came from, they would have had the opportunity to return to it;

16 but in fact they were longing for a better homeland, their heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, since he has founded the city for them.

17 It was by faith that Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He offered to sacrifice his only son even though he had yet to receive what had been promised,

18 and he had been told: Isaac is the one through whom your name will be carried on.

19 He was confident that God had the power even to raise the dead; and so, figuratively speaking, he was given back Isaac from the dead.

20 It was by faith that this same Isaac gave his blessing to Jacob and Esau for the still distant future.

21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, bowed in reverence, as he leant on his staff.

22 It was by faith that, when he was about to die, Joseph mentioned the Exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions about his own remains.

23 It was by faith that Moses, when he was born, was kept hidden by his parents for three months; because they saw that he was a fine child; they were not afraid of the royal edict.

24 It was by faith that, when he was grown up, Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter

25 and chose to be ill-treated in company with God's people rather than to enjoy the transitory pleasures of sin.

26 He considered that the humiliations offered to the Anointed were something more precious than all the treasures of Egypt, because he had his eyes fixed on the reward.

27 It was by faith that he left Egypt without fear of the king's anger; he held to his purpose like someone who could see the Invisible.

28 It was by faith that he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood to prevent the Destroyer from touching any of their first-born sons.

29 It was by faith they crossed the Red Sea as easily as dry land, while the Egyptians, trying to do the same, were drowned.

30 It was through faith that the walls of Jericho fell down when the people had marched round them for seven days.

31 It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute welcomed the spies and so was not killed with the unbelievers.

32 What more shall I say? There is not time for me to give an account of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, or of David, Samuel and the prophets.

33 These were men who through faith conquered kingdoms, did what was upright and earned the promises. They could keep a lion's mouth shut,

34 put out blazing fires and emerge unscathed from battle. They were weak people who were given strength to be brave in war and drive back foreign invaders.

35 Some returned to their wives from the dead by resurrection; and others submitted to torture, refusing release so that they would rise again to a better life.

36 Some had to bear being pilloried and flogged, or even chained up in prison.

37 They were stoned, or sawn in half, or killed by the sword; they were homeless, and wore only the skins of sheep and goats; they were in want and hardship, and maltreated.

38 They were too good for the world and they wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and ravines.

39 These all won acknowledgement through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised,

40 since God had made provision for us to have something better, and they were not to reach perfection except with us.

12)1 With so many witnesses in a great cloud all around us, we too, then, should throw off everything that weighs us down and the sin that clings so closely, and with perseverance keep running in the race which lies ahead of us.

2 Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which lay ahead of him, he endured the cross, disregarding the shame of it, and has taken his seat at the right of God's throne.

3 Think of the way he persevered against such opposition from sinners and then you will not lose heart and come to grief.

4 In the fight against sin, you have not yet had to keep fighting to the point of bloodshed.

5 Have you forgotten that encouraging text in which you are addressed as sons? My son, do not scorn correction from the Lord, do not resent his training,

6 for the Lord trains those he loves, and chastises every son he accepts.

7 Perseverance is part of your training; God is treating you as his sons. Has there ever been any son whose father did not train him?

8 If you were not getting this training, as all of you are, then you would be not sons but bastards.

9 Besides, we have all had our human fathers who punished us, and we respected them for it; all the more readily ought we to submit to the Father of spirits, and so earn life.

10 Our human fathers were training us for a short life and according to their own lights; but he does it all for our own good, so that we may share his own holiness.

11 Of course, any discipline is at the time a matter for grief, not joy; but later, in those who have undergone it, it bears fruit in peace and uprightness.

12 So steady all weary hands and trembling knees

13 and make your crooked paths straight; then the injured limb will not be maimed, it will get better instead.

14 Seek peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one can ever see the Lord.

15 Be careful that no one is deprived of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness should begin to grow and make trouble; this can poison a large number.

16 And be careful that there is no immoral person, or anyone worldly minded like Esau, who sold his birthright for one single meal.

17 As you know, when he wanted to obtain the blessing afterwards, he was rejected and, though he pleaded for it with tears, he could find no way of reversing the decision.

18 What you have come to is nothing known to the senses: not a blazing fire, or gloom or total darkness, or a storm;

19 or trumpet-blast or the sound of a voice speaking which made everyone that heard it beg that no more should be said to them.

20 They could not bear the order that was given: If even a beast touches the mountain, it must be stoned.

21 The whole scene was so terrible that Moses said, 'I am afraid and trembling.'

22 But what you have come to is Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival,

23 with the whole Church of first-born sons, enrolled as citizens of heaven. You have come to God himself, the supreme Judge, and to the spirits of the upright who have been made perfect;

24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to purifying blood which pleads more insistently than Abel's.

25 Make sure that you never refuse to listen when he speaks. If the people who on earth refused to listen to a warning could not escape their punishment, how shall we possibly escape if we turn away from a voice that warns us from heaven?

26 That time his voice made the earth shake, but now he has given us this promise: I am going to shake the earth once more and not only the earth but heaven as well.

27 The words once more indicate the removal of what is shaken, since these are created things, so that what is not shaken remains.

28 We have been given possession of an unshakeable kingdom. Let us therefore be grateful and use our gratitude to worship God in the way that pleases him, in reverence and fear.

29 For our God is a consuming fire.

13)1 Continue to love each other like brothers,

2 and remember always to welcome strangers, for by doing this, some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

3 Keep in mind those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; and those who are being badly treated, since you too are in the body.

4 Marriage must be honoured by all, and marriages must be kept undefiled, because the sexually immoral and adulterers will come under God's judgement.

5 Put avarice out of your lives and be content with whatever you have; God himself has said: I shall not fail you or desert you,

6 and so we can say with confidence: With the Lord on my side, I fear nothing: what can human beings do to me?

7 Remember your leaders, who preached the word of God to you, and as you reflect on the outcome of their lives, take their faith as your model.

8 Jesus Christ is the same today as he was yesterday and as he will be for ever.

9 Do not be led astray by all sorts of strange doctrines: it is better to rely on grace for inner strength than on food, which has done no good to those who concentrate on it.

10 We have our own altar from which those who serve the Tent have no right to eat.

11 The bodies of the animals whose blood is taken into the sanctuary by the high priest for the rite of expiation are burnt outside the camp,

12 and so Jesus too suffered outside the gate to sanctify the people with his own blood.

13 Let us go to him, then, outside the camp, and bear his humiliation.

14 There is no permanent city for us here; we are looking for the one which is yet to be.

15 Through him, let us offer God an unending sacrifice of praise, the fruit of the lips of those who acknowledge his name.

16 Keep doing good works and sharing your resources, for these are the kinds of sacrifice that please God.

17 Obey your leaders and give way to them; they watch over your souls because they must give an account of them; make this a joy for them to do, and not a grief -- you yourselves would be the losers.

18 Pray for us; we are sure that our own conscience is clear and we are certainly determined to behave honourably in everything we do.

19 I ask you very particularly to pray that I may come back to you all the sooner.

20 I pray that the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood that sealed an eternal covenant,

21 may prepare you to do his will in every kind of good action; effecting in us all whatever is acceptable to himself through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

22 I urge you, brothers, to take these words of encouragement kindly; that is why I have written to you briefly.

23 I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been set free. If he arrives in time, he will be with me when I see you.

24 Greetings to all your leaders and to all God's holy people. God's holy people in Italy send you greetings.

25 Grace be with you all.