Book of Common Prayer

4 We still have God's promise that people will go into his resting place. So let us take care that not one of you will be kept out.

² The good news has been told to us just as it was told to the people in the desert. But the message which they heard did not do them any good. Even though they heard it, they did not believe it.

³ But we who believe, will go into that resting place of God. It is as God said, `When I was angry, I said, "They will never go into my resting place." ' He said this even though his work had been finished ever since he had made the world.

⁴ Here is what he said, somewhere in the holy writings, about the seventh day: `And God rested on the seventh day after doing all his work.'

⁵ And now here he says again, `They will never go into my resting place.'

⁶ So that means some people will go in. But the people who first heard the good news about it did not go in. They did not believe it.

⁷ So he chose another day called `Today.' He spoke through David many years later, who said, `Today, when you hear his voice, do not make your hearts hard.'

⁸ If Joshua had led those people to rest, God would not have talked later about another day.

⁹ So there is still a rest for God's people, like a Sabbath day.

¹⁰ The person who goes into God's resting place will rest after doing his work, just as God rested after doing his work.

¹¹ So let us do our best to go into that resting place. Those people died in the wilderness because they did not believe. So let us take care that the same thing does not happen to one of us.

¹² God's word is living and full of power. It is more sharp than any sword that cuts on both sides. What God says cuts through and divides the mind and spirit. It cuts through and divides the place where the bones are joined, and the part inside the bone. What God says is able to judge the things people think and plan in their hearts.

¹³ God is the one we must meet. Nothing can be hidden from him. Everything is open and he can see it.

¹³ The time for the Passover Feast of the Jews was near. So Jesus went to Jerusalem.

¹⁴ In the temple he found people buying and selling things. They were selling cows, sheep, and doves. Others were sitting at tables changing money for the people.

¹⁵ Jesus tied some pieces of cord together to make a whip. Then he drove out all the people who were buying and selling in the temple. And he drove out the sheep and the cows. He threw down the tables of the money changers and their money.

¹⁶ He said to the people who sold doves, `Take these things out of here. Do not make my Father's house into a market place.'

¹⁷ His disciples remembered that God's word says, `My love for your house is like a fire burning in me.'

¹⁸ The leaders of the Jews said to Jesus, `Who gave you the right to do this? What big work will prove it to us?'

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, `Break down this temple and in three days I will raise it up.'

²⁰ The Jewish leaders said, `It took forty-six years to build this temple. Do you say you will raise it in three days?'

²¹ But Jesus was talking about the temple which was his body.

²² After Jesus died and had been raised from death, the disciples remembered that he had said this to them. Then they believed what the holy writings say. They also believed what Jesus had said to them.