For to which of the angels did God ever say, "My Son art Thou: I have this day become Thy Father;" and again, "I will be a Father to Him, and He shall be My Son"?

do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the time of the provocation on the day of the temptation in the Desert,

where your forefathers so sorely tried My patience and saw all that I did during forty years.

seeing that the warning still comes to us, "To-day, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the time of the provocation."

And with whom was God so greatly grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who had sinned, and whose dead bodies fell in the Desert?

And to whom did He swear that they should not be admitted to His rest, if it was not to those who were disobedient?

For He who has been admitted to His rest, has rested from His works as God did from His.

For we have not a High Priest who is unable to feel for us in our weaknesses, but one who was tempted in every respect just as we are tempted, and yet did not sin.

So Christ also did not claim for Himself the honour of being made High Priest, but was appointed to it by Him who said to Him, "My Son art Thou: I have to-day become Thy Father;"

or of teaching about ceremonial washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgement.

who, unlike other High Priests, is not under the necessity of offering up sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins, and afterwards for those of the people; for this latter thing He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

For not into a Holy place built by men's hands--a mere copy of the reality--did Christ enter, but He entered Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

Nor did He enter for the purpose of many times offering Himself in sacrifice, just as the High Priest enters the Holy place, year after year, taking with him blood not his own.

Through faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain did, and through this faith he obtained testimony that he was righteous, God giving the testimony by accepting his gifts; and through it, though he is dead, he still speaks.

Through faith Enoch was taken from the earth so that he did not see death, and he could not be found, because God had taken him; for before he was taken we have evidence that he truly pleased God.

And thus there sprang from one man, and him practically dead, a nation like the stars of the sky in number, and like the sands on the sea shore which cannot be counted.

For he reckoned that God is even able to raise a man up from among the dead, and, figuratively speaking, it was from among the dead that he received Isaac again.

Through faith the notorious sinner Rahab did not perish along with the disobedient, for she had welcomed the spies and had sheltered them.

Women received back their dear ones alive from the dead; and others were put to death with torture, refusing the deliverance offered to them--that they might secure a better resurrection.

Be careful not to refuse to listen to Him who is speaking to you. For if they of old did not escape unpunished when they refused to listen to him who spoke on earth, much less shall we escape who turn a deaf ear to Him who now speaks from Heaven.

Now may God who gives peace, and brought Jesus, our Lord, up again from among the dead--even Him who, by virtue of the blood of the eternal Covenant, is the great Shepherd of the sheep--