For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my son! Today I have fathered you"? And in another place he says, "I will be his father and he will be my son."

For he did not put the world to come, about which we are speaking, under the control of angels.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks!

But exhort one another each day, as long as it is called "Today," that none of you may become hardened by sin's deception.

As it says, "Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion."

And against whom was God provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness?

And to whom did he swear they would never enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient?

For we had good news proclaimed to us just as they did. But the message they heard did them no good, since they did not join in with those who heard it in faith.

Therefore it remains for some to enter it, yet those to whom it was previously proclaimed did not enter because of disobedience.

So God again ordains a certain day, "Today," speaking through David after so long a time, as in the words quoted before, "O, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts."

For the one who enters God's rest has also rested from his works, just as God did from his own works.

So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming high priest, but the one who glorified him was God, who said to him, "You are my Son! Today I have fathered you,"

Therefore we must progress beyond the elementary instructions about Christ and move on to maturity, not laying this foundation again: repentance from dead works and faith in God,

teaching about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

but Jesus did so with a sworn affirmation by the one who said to him, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever'" --

He has no need to do every day what those priests do, to offer sacrifices first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people, since he did this in offering himself once for all.

"It will not be like the covenant that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I had no regard for them, says the Lord.

how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands -- the representation of the true sanctuary -- but into heaven itself, and he appears now in God's presence for us.

And he did not enter to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the sanctuary year after year with blood that is not his own,

So when he came into the world, he said, "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.

When he says above, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you did not desire nor did you take delight in them" (which are offered according to the law),

By faith Abel offered God a greater sacrifice than Cain, and through his faith he was commended as righteous, because God commended him for his offerings. And through his faith he still speaks, though he is dead.

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death, and he was not to be found because God took him up. For before his removal he had been commended as having pleased God.

So in fact children were fathered by one man -- and this one as good as dead -- like the number of stars in the sky and like the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore.

and he reasoned that God could even raise him from the dead, and in a sense he received him back from there.

and women received back their dead raised to life. But others were tortured, not accepting release, to obtain resurrection to a better life.

And these all were commended for their faith, yet they did not receive what was promised.

Take care not to refuse the one who is speaking! For if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less shall we, if we reject the one who warns from heaven?

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever!

Now may the God of peace who by the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ,