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Hebrews 3

1Therefore, holy brothers, sharers in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2who is faithful to the one who appointed him, as Moses also was in God's house. 3For he has been considered worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the one who builds a house has more honor than the house. 4For every house is built by someone, but the one who built all things is God. 5Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to what would be spoken later, 6but Christ is faithful as a Son over God's house. We are that house, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we boast.

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 10for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation and said, ‘They always wander in their heart, and they have not known my ways.’ 11So I swore in my anger, ‘They will certainly not enter my rest.’”

12Watch out, brothers, so that none of you has an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13Instead, encourage one another every day, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you is hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14For we have become sharers in Christ, if we hold our initial 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 heard and rebelled? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt through Moses? 17And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not those who disobeyed? 19So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Translation notes 4

3:1–6 — Apostle, servant, Son, and house. “Apostle” means one sent on a commission; here it describes Jesus. “Confession” is the faith publicly acknowledged. “Servant” renders a term for an attendant, not the usual word for a slave. God's house is his household or people; the building image remains active. “God's” makes the likely referent of the Greek pronouns explicit. The base at verse 6 means “that house,” where many other texts have “whose house.” Some also add “firm to the end” here, as in verse 14.

3:7–11 — Today and rest. Psalm 95:7–11 is quoted as the Spirit's present address. This edition places “for forty years” with seeing God's works across the verse boundary; verse 17 also speaks of forty years of anger. “They will certainly not enter” expresses an emphatic oath whose literal form begins “If they enter …” Rest links the wilderness warning to the argument in chapter 4.

3:12–15 — Sharing and holding firm. “Brothers” addresses the believing community, including women. The conditional statements are preserved without inserting an explanation of whether perseverance proves prior participation or maintains it. “Unbelief” and “disobedience” are distinct words but closely related in the warning. “Confidence” at verse 14 is the same Greek noun rendered “being” at 1:3 and “assurance” at 11:1; context determines its sense.

3:16–19 — The wilderness generation. The questions press the example of those who heard and still rebelled. “All” is the author's rhetorical description; no exceptions are inserted from the wider exodus narrative. The severe image of bodies falling is retained.