⁶ Abraham said to him, “See to it that you do not take my son back there.

²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the^[a] Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.^{(A) 21} For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was handed on to them.^{(B) 22} It has happened to them according to the true proverb,

and,

³⁹ But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost but among those who have faith and so preserve our souls.^(A)

5 ¹ For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.^(A)

⁹ By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.^(A)

¹³ All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth,^{(A) 14} for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But as it is, they desire a better homeland, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.^(B)