Hê-bơ-rơ 4

The rest that remains for God’s people

¹So, while the promise that we may enter his rest is still open, let us be afraid that any one of you might be found to have missed it. ²For we too have been told good news, as they were. But the message they heard did them no good, because they did not join in faith with those who truly listened.^{a 3}For it is we who have believed who enter that rest, just as he has said, “So in my anger I swore an oath: ‘They will never enter my rest.’” Yet his works had been finished since the world was founded. ⁴For somewhere he has spoken of the seventh day in these words: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” ⁵And in this passage again: “They will never enter my rest.” ⁶So it is still left for some to enter that rest, and those who first heard the good news did not go in, because they would not obey. ⁷For this reason God again marks out a certain day, “Today,” speaking through David so long afterward, as was said above: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” ⁸If Joshua had brought them into rest, God would not afterward speak of a different day.^{b 9}So a Sabbath rest is still waiting for God’s people. ¹⁰For whoever has entered God’s rest has come to rest from their own works too, just as God did from his.^{c 11}So let us make it our urgent aim to enter that rest, so that no one falls into the same pattern of disobedience.

¹²For the word of God is alive and at work, and it has a keener edge than any two-edged sword. It reaches right in, cutting through soul and spirit, through joints and marrow, and it weighs the thoughts and purposes of the heart. ¹³No created thing is concealed from him. All things are stripped bare and open to the eyes of the one we must answer to.

Jesus, the great high priest

¹⁴We have, then, a great high priest who has gone through the heavens: Jesus the Son of God. So let us keep a firm grip on the confession we make. ¹⁵For the high priest we have is not one who cannot share the feeling of our weaknesses; he has been put to the test in every way, as we are, but without sinning.^{d 16}So let us, with confidence, approach the throne of grace, to receive mercy and to find grace that brings help just when we need it.