Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C Second Reading

A reading from the letter to the Hebrews.

Have you forgotten that encouraging text in which you were addressed as God’s children?  “My child, when God corrects you, do not treat it lightly;
but do not get discouraged when God reprimands you.  For God trains all loved ones and punishes all those acknowledged as God’s children.”

Suffering is part of your training; you are being treated as God’s children: Has there ever been any child whose parent did not give training?  Of course, at the time it is administered, all discipline seems a cause for grief and not for joy, but later it brings forth the fruit of peace and justice to those who are trained in its school.

So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.  Make
straight the paths you walk on, that your halting limbs may not be dislocated but healed.

The Word of God as recorded in the letter to the Hebrews.