Moses the Mediator of God’s Will

²² These words the Lord spoke with a loud voice to your whole assembly at the mountain, out of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and he added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me. ²³ When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders; ²⁴ and you said, ‘Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the fire. Today we have seen that God may speak to someone and the person may still live. ²⁵ So now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, we shall die. ²⁶ For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and remained alive? ²⁷ Go near, you yourself, and hear all that the Lord our God will say. Then tell us everything that the Lord our God tells you, and we will listen and do it.’

²⁸ The Lord heard your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me: ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they are right in all that they have spoken. ²⁹ If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with their children for ever! ³⁰ Go, say to them, “Return to your tents.” ³¹ But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances, that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.’ ³² You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. ³³ You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.

The Rest That God Promised

4 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. ² For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.^{[a] 3} For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God^[b] has said,

though his works were finished at the foundation of the world. ⁴ For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’ ⁵ And again in this place it says, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ⁶ Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, ⁷ again he sets a certain day—‘today’—saying through David much later, in the words already quoted,

⁸ For if Joshua had given them rest, God^[c] would not speak later about another day. ⁹ So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; ¹⁰ for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his. ¹¹ Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.