11About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

12For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,

13for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.

14But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

1Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,

2and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

3And this we will do if God permits.

4For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,

5and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,

6and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

7For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

8But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.