3
“Be Very Careful, Brothers”
1 That is why, holy brothers and sisters,+ with regard to whom it is+ a summons+ from heaven in which you share as companions,+ you must carefully consider the apostle and high priest whom we profess, namely, Jesus,
2 who is fully+ trustworthy+ in the priestly work that God has assigned to him,+ just as Moses, too, was himself+ “trustworthy in his work+ in God’s+ house.”+
3 Jesus+ has been deemed worthy of even greater honor, you see,+ than Moses, just as the builder of a house himself+ receives greater honor+ than the house he builds.+
4 Every house, you see, has a builder.+ The one who built all+ things, however, is God.
5 And whereas Moses, on the one hand, was “trustworthy in his work in God’s entire house”+ as a servant, to bear solemn witness to the things that God+ would speak in the future,+
6 the Messiah, on the other, is trustworthy+ as the Son in charge of God’s+ house—whose house we ourselves are, if we faithfully retain+ our courage and our confidence in that for which we hope.+
7 That is why, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if ᵖyou hear his voice,+
8 don’t harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion,
as they did during the time+ of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors+ put me to the test and tried me,
and so felt my punishments
10 for forty years.+
That is why I became angry with this generation and said,
‘They are not loyal to me,+
and they have refused to follow+ my ways.’
11 So I swore a solemn oath in my wrath:
‘Only if I am not God+ will they enter my rest.’ ”+
12 Be very careful, brothers and sisters, lest any of you become so full of evil and unbelief that you forsake the living God.+
13 Instead, continue to strengthen and encourage+ one another each day, so long as “Today” is what+ it is still+ called, so that none of you may be hardened as a result of sin’s deceitful tricks.
14 Companions of the Messiah, you see, are what+ we still are and will surely+ remain if indeed, in regard to the conviction we had at first, we retain it steadfastly to the very+ finish.
15 As it says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,+
don’t be dull and stubborn as they were in the rebellion.”+
16 Who was it, after all, who, after having “heard,” then “rebelled”? It was all who came out of Egypt under Moses’ leadership,+ was it not?+
17 And with whom did God+ “become angry for forty years?” It was with those who sinned, was it not, who as a result+ were struck dead+ in the wilderness?+
18 And to whom did God+ “swear a solemn oath,” that they would certainly not “enter his rest,” if not to those who refused to obey him?
19 And so we see that they were not allowed+ to enter because of their unbelief.