Holding Firmly to the End, Part Two

Jesus Greater Than Moses

¹Therefore, holy brothers,1 you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, ²who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's2 house. ³For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. ⁴(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) ⁵Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, ⁶but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.3

A Rest for the People of God

⁷Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,

⁸do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

on the day of testing in the wilderness,

⁹where your fathers put me to the test

and saw my works for forty years.

¹⁰Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;

they have not known my ways.’

¹¹As I swore in my wrath,

‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

¹²Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. ¹⁵As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

¹⁶For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? ¹⁷And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.