Hebrews 3:7-4:13

English Standard Version

A Rest for the People of God

⁷Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

^(A)“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 ^(B)forty years.
¹⁰Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
    they have not known my ways.’
¹¹^(C)As 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 ^(D)the living God. ¹³But ^(E)exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by ^(F)the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴For we have come to share in Christ, ^(G)if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. ¹⁵As it is said,

^(H)“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

¹⁶For ^(I)who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not ^(J)all those who left Egypt led by Moses? ¹⁷And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, ^(K)whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom did he swear that ^(L)they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹So we see that ^(M)they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

4 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem ^(N)to 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 ^(O)they were not united by faith with those who listened.^[a] ³For 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 ^(S)failed 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, God^[b] would not have spoken of another day later on. ⁹So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, ¹⁰for whoever has entered God's rest has also ^(U)rested from his works as God did from his.

¹¹Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so ^(V)that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. ¹²For ^(W)the word of God is living and ^(X)active, ^(Y)sharper than any ^(Z)two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and ^(AA)discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³And ^(AB)no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are ^(AC)naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.