Hebrews 3

Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;

1So, my friends who belong to God, think carefully about Jesus. You share in God's call from heaven. Jesus is the one God sent to us. He is also our high priest, the head priest who brings us to God. He is the one we say we believe in.

2Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.

2Jesus was faithful to God, who gave him this job. Moses was faithful too, in all of God's house.

3For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.

3But Jesus is worth more honor than Moses. The person who builds a house gets more honor than the house does.

4For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.

4Every house is built by someone. And God is the one who built everything.

5And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;

5Moses was faithful in all of God's house, but he was a servant there. His work pointed ahead to things God would say later.

6But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

6Christ is the Son, and he is over God's house. We are that house, if we keep holding on. We must keep our courage and our glad hope right to the end.

7Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,

7So listen. The Holy Spirit says this: "Today, if you hear God's voice,

8Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

8do not let your hearts turn hard. Long ago your people did that. They fought against God and tested him out in the desert.

NoteThe old words "provocation" and "temptation" here mean rebelling against God and putting him to the test. "Wilderness" means empty desert land, not a forest.

9When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.

9There your fathers tested me and tried me. For forty years they watched the things I did.

10Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.

10So I was sad and angry with those people. I said, 'Their hearts always wander the wrong way. They have never learned my ways.'

11So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)

11I was angry, so I made a solemn promise: 'They will never enter my rest.'"

12Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

12So be careful, friends. Do not let anyone have a bad heart that will not believe. Such a heart turns away from the living God.

13But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

13Instead, help each other stay strong every day, while it is still called "today." Then sin cannot trick anyone and make his heart hard.

14For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;

14We share in all that Christ has, if we hold on firmly to the end. We must keep the trust we had at the very start.

15While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

15This is what the words say: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not let your hearts turn hard. Do not do what those people did when they fought against God."

16For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.

16Who heard God's voice and then turned against him? It was the people Moses led out of Egypt.

NoteThe old English here can be read two ways: either "but not all of them rebelled," or as a question, "was it not all of them?" Most translators today read it the second way, and that is how it is written above.

17But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?

17Who was God angry with for forty years? It was the people who sinned. Their dead bodies were left in the desert.

18And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?

18Who did God promise would never enter his rest? It was the people who would not obey him.

19So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

19So we see why they could not go in. They did not believe.