Hebrews 3:11–4:11

¹¹So in my anger I took an oath:

‘They will never enter my place of rest.’ ”

¹²Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. ¹³You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. ¹⁴For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. ¹⁵Remember what it says:

“Today when you hear his voice,

don’t harden your hearts

as Israel did when they rebelled.”

¹⁶And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? ¹⁷And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? ¹⁹So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest.

Chapter 4

Promised Rest for God’s People

God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. ²For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God. ³For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said,

“In my anger I took an oath:

‘They will never enter my place of rest,’ ”

even though this rest has been ready since he made the world. ⁴We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day: “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.” ⁵But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.”

⁶So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. ⁷So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted:

“Today when you hear his voice,

don’t harden your hearts.”

⁸Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. ⁹So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. ¹⁰For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. ¹¹So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.