Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

Jesus Superior to Moses

3 Therefore, holy brothers, partakers in a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Jesus Christ, ² who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses was faithful in all His house. ³ For the One was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, in that He who builds the house has more honor than the house itself. ⁴ For every house is built by someone, but the One who builds all things is God. ⁵ Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, testifying about those things that were to be spoken later. ⁶ But Christ is faithful over God’s house as a Son, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of our hope firm to the end.

A Rest for God’s People

⁷ Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:

¹² Be attentive, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, and you depart from the living God. ¹³ But exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence firmly to the end, ¹⁵ while it is said:

¹⁶ For who were they who heard and rebelled? Was it not all of those who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? ¹⁷ And with whom was He grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who had sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed? ¹⁹ So we see that they could not enter because of unbelief.

4 Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest remains, let us fear lest any of you should seem to come short of it. ² For the gospel was preached to us as well as to them. But the word preached did not benefit them, because it was not mixed with faith in those who heard it. ³ For we who have believed have entered this rest, as He has said,

However, His works have been finished since the creation of the world. ⁴ For He spoke somewhere about the seventh day like this: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.”^{[d] 5} And again in the present passage He said, “They shall not enter My rest.”^[e]

⁶ Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and they to whom it was first preached did not enter due to unbelief, ⁷ again He establishes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David, after so long a time, as it has been said:

⁸ For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have later spoken of another day. ⁹ Therefore a rest remains for the people of God. ¹⁰ For whoever enters His rest will also cease from his own works, as God did from His. ¹¹ Let us labor therefore to enter that rest, lest anyone fall by the same pattern of unbelief.

¹² For the word of God is alive, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart. ¹³ There is no creature that is not revealed in His sight, for all things are bare and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Jesus the Great High Priest

¹⁴ Since then we have a great High Priest who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to our confession. ¹⁵ For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who was in every sense tempted like we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶ Let us then come with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

5 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to represent men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. ² He is able to have compassion on the ignorant and on those who are wayward, for he himself is also subject to weakness. ³ Because of this he must offer sacrifices for his own sins, just as he does for the people. ⁴ No man takes this honor for himself, but he who is called by God receives it, just as Aaron did.

⁵ So also Christ did not glorify Himself to be made a High Priest, but it was He who said to Him:

⁶ As He also says in another place:

⁷ In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death. He was heard because of His godly fear. ⁸ Though He was a Son, He learned obedience through the things that He suffered, ⁹ and being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him, ¹⁰ being designated by God a High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Warning Against Apostasy

¹¹ Concerning this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become hard of hearing. ¹² For though by now you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God and have come to need milk rather than solid food. ¹³ Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby. ¹⁴ But solid food belongs to those who are mature, for those who through practice have powers of discernment that are trained to distinguish good from evil.