The Superiority of Jesus to Moses

Therefore, holy brothers, sharers in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to the one who appointed him, as Moses also was in his household.[a] For this one is considered worthy of greater glory than Moses, inasmuch as the one who builds it has greater honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the one who built all things is God. And Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony to the things that would be spoken, but Christ was faithful[b] as a son over his house, whose house we are, if[c] we hold fast to our confidence and the hope we can be proud of.

A Serious Warning Against Unbelief

Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
    in the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers tested me by trial
    and saw my works 10 for forty years.
Therefore I was angry with this generation,
    and I said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
and they do not know my ways.’
11     As I swore in my anger,
They will never enter[d] into my rest.’”[e]

12 Watch out, brothers, lest there be in some of you an evil, unbelieving heart, with the result that you fall away[f] from the living God. 13 But encourage one another day by day[g], as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you become hardened[h] by the deception of sin. 14 For we have become partners of Christ, if indeed we hold fast the beginning of our commitment steadfast until the end, 15 while it is said[i],

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”[j]

16 For who, when they[k] heard it, were disobedient? Surely it was not all who went out from Egypt through Moses? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear they would not enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient? 19 And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.

Footnotes

  1. Hebrews 3:2 Some manuscripts have “in all his household”
  2. Hebrews 3:6 The words “was faithful” are not in the Greek text, but are an understood repetition from the previous verse and v. 2
  3. Hebrews 3:6 Some manuscripts have “if indeed”
  4. Hebrews 3:11 Literally “if they will enter”
  5. Hebrews 3:11 A quotation from Ps 95:7b-11
  6. Hebrews 3:12 Here “with the result that” is supplied as a component of the infinitive (“fall away”) which is understood as result
  7. Hebrews 3:13 Literally “by each day”
  8. Hebrews 3:13 Literally “not anyone of you be hardened”
  9. Hebrews 3:15 Literally “in the saying”
  10. Hebrews 3:15 A quotation from Ps 95:7b-8
  11. Hebrews 3:16 Here “when” is supplied as a component of the participle (“heard”) which is understood as temporal