Graphic Bible · Scene 2 of 6

A carefully tended olive sapling with a simple wooden support and cloth tie, freshly pruned small branches on the soil, new healthy leaves catching morning light. An entirely uninhabited cultivated terrace. No person, symbols or text.
Artwork is an interpretation. Scripture is quoted from the People's Open Bible.

Hebrews 12:4-11

The fruit of training

Run with endurance · Hebrews 12

Story guide: The letter presents discipline as painful training with a later peaceful fruit. The tended tree is a visual metaphor for growth in holiness, not a depiction of divine punishment.

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4You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your struggle against sin,

5And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not regard lightly the Lord’s discipline, nor lose heart when you are reproved by him.”

6For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he scourges every son whom he receives.

7Endure for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not discipline?

8But if you are without discipline, of which all have become sharers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

9Furthermore, we had our earthly fathers as disciplinarians, and we respected them. Shall we not much more submit to the Father of spirits and live?

10For they disciplined us for a few days as seemed best to them, but he does so for our benefit, so that we may share in his holiness.

11All discipline seems for the present to be not joy but sorrow; yet later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

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