3
My fellow believers, God has set you apart and has chosen you to belong to himself. So consider Jesus. He is God’s apostle to us and is also the high priest whom we say we believe in together. 2 He faithfully served God, who appointed him, just like Moses faithfully served all of God’s people, whom we call God’s house. 3-4 Now just as every house is made by someone, God made everything. So God has considered that Jesus is worthy for people to honor him more than they honor Moses, just as the one who builds a house deserves for people to honor him more than they should honor the house. 5 Moses very faithfully served God as he helped all of God’s people, just as a servant faithfully serves his master. So Moses testified about what Jesus would say in the future. 6 But the Messiah is the Son who rules over God’s people. And we are the people he rules if we continue to courageously believe in the Messiah and confidently expect God to do all that he has promised to do for us.
7 So then, it is just as when the Holy Spirit caused the psalmist to write these words in the scriptures to the Israelites:
“Now, when you hear God speak to you, 8 Do not stubbornly disobey him, as your ancestors rebelled against him when he tested them in the wilderness. 9 There your ancestors repeatedly tested me to see whether I would be patient with them, even though they saw all the amazing things I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with those people, and I said about them, ‘They are never faithful to me. They do not understand how I wanted them to conduct their lives.’
11 So then I was angry with them. I solemnly declared, ‘They will not enter the land of Canaan where I would let them rest!’”
12 So, fellow believers, be careful that none of you develop evil thinking that would lead you to stop obeying the only God who actually lives. 13 Instead, each of you must encourage each other every day, while you still have the opportunity. If not someone among you could behave stubbornly and lead others to sin. 14 We are now joined to the Messiah if we continue to seriously and confidently trust in him, from the time we first trusted in him to the time when we die. 15 The psalmist wrote in the scripture that God said,
“Now, when you hear me speaking to you, do not stubbornly disobey me. Your ancestors did that when they rebelled against me.”
16 For remember who it was who rebelled against God, even though they heard him speak to them. It was certainly all of God’s people who Moses led out of Egypt. 17 And remember who it was with whom God was disgusted for forty years. Certainly it was God’s people who sinned, and their dead bodies lay there in the desert. 18 And remember about whom God solemnly declared, “They will not enter the land where I would let them rest.” It was certainly those Israelites who disobeyed God. 19 From that example we know that it was because they did not trust in God. So they were unable to enter the land where God would allow them to rest.