Hebrews 3:7-4:2

Good News Translation

A Rest for God's People

⁷^(A)So then, as the Holy Spirit says,

“If you hear God's voice today,
⁸    do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were when they rebelled against God,
    as they were that day in the desert when they put him to the test.
⁹There they put me to the test and tried me, says God,
    although they had seen what I did for forty years.
¹⁰And so I was angry with those people and said,
    ‘They are always disloyal
    and refuse to obey my commands.’
¹¹I was angry and made a solemn promise:
    ‘They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest!’”

¹²My friends, be careful that none of you have a heart so evil and unbelieving that you will turn away from the living God. ¹³Instead, in order that none of you be deceived by sin and become stubborn, you must help one another every day, as long as the word “Today” in the scripture applies to us. ¹⁴For we are all partners with Christ if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at the beginning.

¹⁵^(B)This is what the scripture says:

“If you hear God's voice today,
do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were
when they rebelled against God.”

¹⁶^(C)Who were the people who heard God's voice and rebelled against him? All those who were led out of Egypt by Moses. ¹⁷With whom was God angry for forty years? With the people who sinned, who fell down dead in the desert. ¹⁸When God made his solemn promise, “They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest”—of whom was he speaking? Of those who rebelled. ¹⁹We see, then, that they were not able to enter the land, because they did not believe.

4 Now, God has offered us the promise that we may receive that rest he spoke about. Let us take care, then, that none of you will be found to have failed to receive that promised rest. ²For we have heard the Good News, just as they did. They heard the message, but it did them no good, because when they heard it, they did not accept it with faith.