Hebrews 3:7–4:8

A Rest for the People of God

⁷Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

^b“Today, if you hear his voice,

⁸do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

on the day of testing in the wilderness,

⁹where your fathers put me to the test

and saw my works for ^cforty years.

¹⁰Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;

they have not known my ways.’

^11dAs I swore in my wrath,

‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”

¹²Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from ^ethe living God. ¹³But ^fexhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by ^gthe deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴For we have come to share in Christ, ^hif indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. ¹⁵As it is said,

^b“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

¹⁶For ⁱwho were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not ^jall those who left Egypt led by Moses? ¹⁷And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, ^kwhose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom did he swear that ^lthey would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹So we see that ^mthey were unable to enter because of unbelief.

4Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem ⁿto have failed to reach it. ²For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because ^othey were not united by faith with those who listened.^{1 3}For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

^p“As I swore in my wrath,

‘They shall not enter my rest,’ ”

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: ^q“And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” ⁵And again in this passage he said,

^r“They shall not enter my rest.”

⁶Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news ^sfailed to enter because of disobedience, ⁷again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

^t“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.”

⁸For if Joshua had given them rest, God² would not have spoken of another day later on.