Book of Common Prayer

Getting through to the sabbath rest

4 So we are naturally afraid that some of you might seem to have missed out on God’s promise of entering his rest, the promise which is still open before us. ² For we certainly had the good news announced to us, just as they did; but the word which they heard didn’t do them any good, because they were not united in faith with those who heard it. ³ For it is we who believe who enter into the rest; as it has been said,

—even though God’s works had been complete since the foundation of the world. ⁴ For it says this somewhere about the seventh day,

⁵ and again, in the present passage,

⁶ Therefore, since some failed to enter into it, and those who received the good news earlier on didn’t enter because of unbelief, ⁷ he once again appoints a day, “Today,” saying through David—after such a long interval of time!—in the words already quoted,

⁸ If Joshua had given them rest, you see, he wouldn’t be speaking about another subsequent “rest.” ⁹ Thus we conclude: there is still a future sabbath “rest” for God’s people. ¹⁰ Anyone who enters that “rest” will take a rest from their works, as God did from his.

¹⁶ This, you see, is how much God loved the world: enough to give his only, special son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should share in the life of God’s new age. ¹⁷ After all, God didn’t send the son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world could be saved by him.

¹⁸ “Anyone who believes in him is not condemned. But anyone who doesn’t believe is condemned already, because they didn’t believe in the name of God’s only, special son. ¹⁹ And this is the condemnation: that light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because what they were doing was evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does evil hates the light; people like that don’t come to the light, in case their deeds get shown up and reproved. ²¹ But people who do the truth come to the light, so that it can become clear that what they have done has been done in God.”