⁵ As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified.

¹³ At the same time there was a terrible earthquake that destroyed a tenth of the city. Seven thousand people died in that earthquake, and everyone else was terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

²⁸ For anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us.

A Warning against Drifting Away

2 So we must listen very carefully to the truth we have heard, or we may drift away from it. ² For the message God delivered through angels has always stood firm, and every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished. ³ So what makes us think we can escape if we ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus himself and then delivered to us by those who heard him speak?

⁶ These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, ⁷ or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.”^{[a] 8} And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.

⁹ Nor should we put Christ^[b] to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. ¹⁰ And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. ¹¹ These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.