Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

3 My brothers, you are holy. You are also called to go to heaven. Take time to think carefully about Jesus. God sent him. He is the high priest we believe in.

² He did what God sent him to do, just as Moses did in God's house.

³ But Jesus is much greater than Moses - as the one who builds a house is greater than the house itself.

⁴ Every house is built by someone, but God is the one who builds all things.

⁵ Moses did what he was told to do as a servant in all of God's house. He showed things that God would say later.

⁶ But Jesus Christ was true as a Son over God's house. We are God's house if we keep on believing and telling others what we hope to have.

⁷ So as the Holy Spirit says, `Today, when you hear me speak, do not make your hearts hard.

⁸ That is what happened when the people tested me in the desert and I became angry.

⁹ There your fathers tested me and tried me. And they saw what I did for forty years.

¹⁰ So I was very angry with the people of that time. I said, "Their minds are always dark. They have not known my ways."

¹¹ I said when I was angry, "They will never go into my resting place." '

¹² My brothers, take care that not one of you has a heart that does not believe. Such a heart will take you away from the living God.

¹³ But talk to each other every day while `Today' lasts, so that wrong ways will not fool any one of you and your hearts become hard.

¹⁴ We have our part with Christ if we go on to the end and believe in him as we did at first.

¹⁵ God is still saying now, `Today, when you hear me speak, do not make your hearts hard. That is what happened when the people turned against me.'

¹⁶ Who were the people who heard him and yet made him very angry? It was all the people whom Moses led out of the country of Egypt.

¹⁷ With whom was God angry for forty years? He was angry with the people who had done wrong. And they died in the desert.

¹⁸ Who were the people God said would never go into his resting place? They were the people who would not listen to him.

¹⁹ So then, we see that they could not go in because they did not believe him.

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.

¹⁴ We have a great high priest who has gone into heaven. He is Jesus, the Son of God. Because we have such a great high priest, let us hold on to the things we believe.

¹⁵ We have a high priest who can feel with us when we are weak. He has been tested in every way, just as we are. But he did not do anything wrong.

¹⁶ So let us trust him when we come to worship God. He is so good. He will be kind to us and help us when we need it.

5 Every high priest is chosen from among men. His work is to stand before God for people. He brings gifts and makes sacrifices to God for the wrong things people have done.

² Such a high priest can be kind to people who do not know what is right and who do wrong. He knows how to share in the suffering of others because he himself is weak.

³ Because he is weak himself, he must make sacrifices to God for the wrong things he has done, just as he does for the people.

⁴ No one chooses himself to be high priest. But God calls him, just as he called Aaron.

⁵ So Christ did not choose himself to be a high priest. But he was chosen by the One who said to him, `You are my Son, and I am your Father today.'

⁶ In another place in the holy writings God said, `You are a priest for ever like Melchizedek.'

⁷ When Jesus was a man, he talked to God who was able to save him from death. He called loudly to him with tears. God heard him because he honoured and respected God.

⁸ Even though Jesus was his Son, he learned to obey God in the troubles he had.

⁹ When he became perfect, he saved for ever all who obeyed him.

¹⁰ God called him a high priest like Melchizedek was a priest.

¹¹ We have many things to say about him. But they are hard to explain to you. You are so slow to understand what we tell you.

¹² By this time you should be able to teach others. But you need someone to teach you God's word again from the very beginning. Like children, you need milk, not meat.

¹³ Anyone who takes milk does not understand the message about which things are right.

¹⁴ But meat is for people who are grown up. It is for people who have trained their minds to know the difference between what is good and what is bad.