Therefore we must give still more heed to what we were taught, for fear we should drift away.

Who were they who heard God speak and yet provoked him? Were not they all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses?

And who were they to whom God swore that they should not enter upon his rest, if not those who had proved faithless?

For we have had the Good News told us just as they had. But the Message which they heard did them no good, since they did not share the faith of those who were attentive to it.

Since, then, there is still a promise that some shall enter upon this Rest, and since those who were first told the Good News did not enter upon it, because of their disbelief,

For if those who were once for all brought into the Light, and learned to appreciate the gift from Heaven, and came to share in the Holy Spirit,

His words were-- 'I will assuredly bless thee and increase thy numbers.'

And therefore God, in his desire to show, with unmistakable plainness, to those who were to enter on the enjoyment of what he had promised, the unchangeableness of his purpose, bound himself with an oath.

If he were, however, still upon earth, he would not even be a priest, since there are already priests who offer the gifts as the Law directs.

And in the same way he also sprinkled with the blood the Tabernacle and all the things that were used in public worship.

How much worse then, think you, will be the punishment deserved by those who have trampled underfoot the Son of God, who have treated the blood that rendered the Covenant valid--the very blood by which they were purified--as of no account, and who have outraged the Spirit of Love?

Sometimes, in consequence of the taunts and injuries heaped upon you, you became a public spectacle; and sometimes you suffered through having shown yourselves to be the friends of men who were in the very position in which you had been.

For you not only sympathized with those who were in prison, but you even took the confiscation of your possessions joyfully, knowing, as you did, that you had in yourselves a greater possession and a lasting one.

And it was for faith that the men of old were renowned.

And so from one man--and that when his powers were dead--there sprang a people as numerous 'as the stars in the heavens or the countless grains of sand upon the shore.'

But no, they were longing for a better, a heavenly, land! And therefore God was not ashamed to be called their God; indeed he had already prepared them a city.

Faith enabled the people to cross the Red Sea, as if it had been dry land, while the Egyptians, when they attempted to do so, were drowned.

Women received back their dead raised to life. Some were tortured on the wheel, and refused release in order that they might rise to a better life.

They were stoned to death, they were tortured, they were swan asunder, they were put to the sword; they wandered about clothed in the skins of sheep or goats, destitute, persecuted, ill-used--

Weigh well the example of him who had to endure such opposition from 'men who were sinning against themselves,' so that you should not grow weary or faint-hearted.

Remember the prisoners, as if you were their fellow-prisoners, and the oppressed, not forgetting that you also are still in the body.