A High Priest for Humanity
Chapter 3
Christ’s Fidelity Is Superior to That of Moses. 1 Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly calling, concentrate your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and the high priest of our profession of faith. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in God’s household.
3 However, he is deserving of a greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house is more honored than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all is God.
5 Now Moses was faithful as a servant in God’s household, testifying to the things that would later be revealed, 6 whereas Christ was faithful as a son watching over his house. And we are that house if we hold firm to our confidence and take pride in our hope.
The “Today” of God. 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 harden not your hearts as at the rebellion,
in the day of testing in the desert,
9 where your ancestors tried me and tested me
though they had seen what I could do 10 for forty years.
As a result I became angered with that generation,
and I said, ‘Their hearts have always gone astray,
and they do not know my ways.’
11 Therefore, I swore in my anger,
‘They will never enter into my rest.’ ”
12 Take care, brethren, that none of you will ever have an evil and unbelieving heart that will cause you to forsake the living God. 13 Rather, encourage each other every day, as long as it is today, so that none of you will become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we will become partners with Christ only if we maintain firmly until the end the confidence we originally had, 15 as it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts as at the rebellion.”
16 Who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Were they not all those whom Moses had led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angered for forty years? Was it not with those who had sinned and whose corpses lay in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would never enter into his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see clearly that they were unable to enter because of their refusal to believe.
Footnotes
- Hebrews 3:1
- Hebrews 3:1
- Hebrews 3:7
