but encourage one another every day, as long as we can still speak of Today, so that no one of you may have his heart hardened by the pleasantness of sin.

So while we can still speak of Today, if you hear him speak, do not harden your hearts, as they provoked him by doing.

We ought therefore to fear that when the promise of admission to his Rest is still open, some one of you may be found to have failed to reach it.

Since then it is still true that somebody will be admitted to it, and those who had a gospel preached to them before were not admitted because of their disobedience,

So there must still be a promised Sabbath of Rest for God's people.

For God is not so unjust as to forget the work you have done and the love you have showed for his cause, in giving help to your fellow-Christians as you still do.

The point is still more clear in view of the fact that the appointment of the new priest resembles that of Melchizedek,

Further, if he were still on earth, he would not be a priest at all, for there are priests enough provided to offer the gifts the Law prescribes??5 though the service they engage in is only a shadow and imitation of that in heaven. For when Moses was going to make the tent of worship he was warned, "Be sure to make it all just like the pattern you were shown on the mountain."

In all this the holy Spirit was seeking to show that there was no free access to the sanctuary while the outer tent was still standing.

Faith made Abel's sacrifice greater in the sight of God than Cain's; through faith he gained God's approval as an upright man, for God himself approved his offering, and through faith even when he was dead he still spoke.

Faith enabled Isaac to bequeath to Jacob and Esau blessings that were still to be.

Still others had to endure taunts and blows, and even fetters and prison.

for God had resolved upon something still better for us, that they might not reach the fulfilment of their hopes except with us.