5 ¹¹ About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 5 ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God's word. You need milk, not solid food; 5 ¹³ for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child. 5 ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

6 ¹ Therefore 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, 6 ² with instruction about ablutions, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 6 ³ And this we will do if God permits. 6 ⁴ For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 6 ⁵ and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 ⁶ if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. 6 ⁷ For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 6 ^{8 [ Gn.3.17-18. ]} But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned.

6 ⁹ Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. 6 ¹⁰ For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. 6 ¹¹ And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, 6 ¹² so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.