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Therefore, as the Ruach HaKodesh says,

“Today, if you hear God’s voice,
don’t harden your hearts, as you did in the Bitter Quarrel
on that day in the Wilderness when you put God to the test.
Yes, your fathers put me to the test;
they challenged me, and they saw my work for forty years!
10 Therefore, I was disgusted with that generation —
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
they have not understood how I do things’;
11 in my anger, I swore
that they would not enter my rest.”[a]

12 Watch out, brothers, so that there will not be in any one of you an evil heart lacking trust, which could lead you to apostatize from the living God! 13 Instead, keep exhorting each other every day, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you will become hardened by the deceit of sin. 14 For we have become sharers in the Messiah, provided, however, that we hold firmly to the conviction we began with, right through until the goal is reached.

15 Now where it says,

“Today, if you hear God’s voice,
don’t harden your hearts, as you did in the Bitter Quarrel,” [b]

16 who were the people who, after they heard, quarreled so bitterly? All those whom Moshe brought out of Egypt. 17 And with whom was God disgusted for forty years? Those who sinned — yes, they fell dead in the Wilderness! 18 And to whom was it that he swore that they would not enter his rest? Those who were disobedient. 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of lack of trust.

Therefore, let us be terrified of the possibility that, even though the promise of entering his rest remains, any one of you might be judged to have fallen short of it; for Good News has also been proclaimed to us, just as it was to them. But the message they heard didn’t do them any good, because those who heard it did not combine it with trust. For it is we who have trusted who enter the rest.

It is just as he said,

“And in my anger, I swore
that they would not enter my rest.”[c]

He swore this even though his works have been in existence since the founding of the universe. For there is a place where it is said, concerning the seventh day,

“And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”[d]

And once more, our present text says,

“They will not enter my rest.”[e]

Therefore, since it still remains for some to enter it, and those who received the Good News earlier did not enter, he again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David, so long afterwards, in the text already given,

“Today, if you hear God’s voice, don’t harden your hearts.”[f]

For if Y’hoshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later of another “day.”

So there remains a Shabbat-keeping for God’s people. 10 For the one who has entered God’s rest has also rested from his own works, as God did from his. 11 Therefore, let us do our best to enter that rest; so that no one will fall short because of the same kind of disobedience.

Footnotes

  1. Hebrews 3:11 Psalm 95:7–11
  2. Hebrews 3:15 Psalm 95:7–8
  3. Hebrews 4:3 Psalm 95:11
  4. Hebrews 4:4 Genesis 2:2
  5. Hebrews 4:5 Psalm 95:11
  6. Hebrews 4:7 Psalm 95:7–8

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