He calls upon us to hear and honour the word of Christ, who is more worthy than Moses. The punishment of persons who stubbornly harden their hearts.

3 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the celestial calling, consider the ambassador and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, ² who was faithful to him who appointed him, even as Moses was in all his house. ³ And yet this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who has prepared the house has more honour in the house.

  ⁴ Every house is built by some man. But he who ordained all things is God. ⁵ And Moses truly was faithful in all his house, as a servant, to bear witness of those things that were to be spoken afterward. ⁶ But Christ as a son has rule over the house – whose house we are, if so be that we hold fast the confidence and the assurance of that hope to the end.

⁷ Therefore as the Holy Spirit says: Today if you hear his voice, ⁸ harden not your hearts, as in the rebellion in the day of trial in the wilderness, ⁹ where your fathers tried me, proved me, and saw my works forty years long. ¹⁰ Therefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do ever err in their hearts; they have not acknowledged my ways. ¹¹ So I swore in my wrath that they would not enter into my rest.

¹² Take heed, brethren, that there be in none of you an evil heart in unbelief, that he should depart from the living God; ¹³ but exhort one another daily, while it is called today, lest any of you grow hard-hearted through the deceitfulness of sin.

¹⁴ We are partakers of Christ if we keep sure until the end the first confidence, ¹⁵ as long as it is said: Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as when you rebelled. ¹⁶ For some, when they heard, rebelled – though not everyone who came out of Egypt under Moses. ¹⁷ But with whom was he displeased for forty years? Was he not displeased with those who sinned, whose bodies were overthrown in the desert? ¹⁸ To whom did he swear that they would not enter into his rest, but to those who did not believe? ¹⁹ And we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.