Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Today’s the time to listen!
7 So listen to what the holy spirit says:
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 don’t harden hearts, as in the great bitterness,
like the day in the desert when they faced the test,
9 when your fathers put me to the test, and challenged me,
and saw my works 10 for forty years.
And so I was angry with that generation,
and said, “They are always straying in their hearts,
they do not know my ways.” 11 As I swore
in my anger, “They’ll never enter my rest.”
12 Take care, my dear family, that none of you should possess an evil and unbelieving heart, leading you to withdraw from the living God. 13 But encourage one another every day, as long as it’s called “Today,” so that none of you may become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Hold on tight!
14 We share the life of the Messiah, you see, only if we keep a firm, tight grip on our original confidence, right through to the end. 15 That’s what it means when it says, “Today, if you hear his voice, don’t make your hearts hard, as in the great bitterness.”
16 Who was it, after all, who heard and then became bitter? It was all those who went out of Egypt under Moses, wasn’t it? 17 And who was it that God was angry with for forty years? It was those who sinned, wasn’t it—those whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who didn’t believe? 19 So we can see that it was their unbelief that prevented them from entering.
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,
As I swore in my anger,
they will never enter my rest
—even though God’s works had been complete since the foundation of the world. 4 For it says this somewhere about the seventh day,
And God rested on the seventh day from all his works,
5 and again, in the present passage,
They will never enter my rest.
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,
Today, if you hear his voice,
don’t harden your hearts.
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.
Danger! God’s word at work
11 So, then, let’s make every effort to enter that “rest,” so that nobody should trip and fall through the same pattern of unbelief.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.