¹Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. ²He was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in God’s house. ³Yet Jesus has been counted worthy of as much more glory than Moses as the builder of a house has more honor than the house. ⁴(For every house is built by some one, but the builder of all things is God.) ⁵Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, ⁶but Christ was faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope.

⁷Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, when 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 forty years.

¹⁰Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

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

they have not known my ways.’

¹¹As I swore in my wrath,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

¹²Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end, ¹⁵while it is said,

“Today, when you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

¹⁶Who were they that heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? ¹⁷And with whom was he provoked forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom did he swear that they should never enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Chapter 4

¹Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it. ²For good news came to us just as to them; but the message which they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers. ³For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

“As I swore in my wrath,

‘They shall never 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, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” ⁵And again in this place he said,

“They shall never enter my rest.”

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

“Today, when you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts.”

⁸For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later of another day. ⁹So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God; ¹⁰for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his.

¹¹Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience. ¹²For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

¹⁴Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. ¹⁵For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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