For to what angel did God ever say, "You are my Son, today I have become your Father"?

But to what angel did He ever say: "Just keep your seat at my right hand, until I make your foes a footstool for your feet"?

You have put all things under His feet!" Now when He gave Him authority over everything, He did not leave a single thing that was not put under His authority. But as yet we do not see everything actually under His authority,

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: "If you but hear His voice today,

You must not harden your hearts as they did in provoking me, as on the day in the desert they tested me,

but day by day, as long as "Today" shall last, continue to encourage one another, so that not one of you may be hardened by sin's deceiving ways,

and yet the warning continues to be spoken: "If you but hear His voice, you must not harden your hearts as they did in provoking me."

To whom did He take oath that they should not be admitted to His rest, if it was not to those who disobeyed Him?

For we have had the good news told to us as well as they, but the message heard did them no good, because they were not by faith made one with those who heeded it.

For whoever is admitted into God's rest himself has rested from his works, just as God did.

So Christ too did not take upon Himself the glory of being appointed High Priest, but it was God who said: "You are my Son; I have today become your Father,"

of teaching about ceremonial washings and the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and final judgment.

who does not need, as did the Levitical priests, to offer sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; this latter is just what He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

Unlike the one that I made with their forefathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them out from the land of Egypt, for they did not abide by their covenant with me, so I did not care for them,' says the Lord.

For a will is valid only after a man is dead, since it has no force whatever while the one who made it is alive.

For since the law cast only a shadow of the blessings to come and did not possess the reality itself of those blessings, the priests with the same sacrifices that are perpetually offered year after year cannot make perfect those who come to worship.

"Sacrifice and offering you did not wish, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt-offerings and sin-offerings you never took delight.

By faith we understand that the worlds were created, beautifully coordinated, and now exist, at God's command; so the things that we see did not develop out of mere matter.

By faith Abel offered a sacrifice more acceptable to God than Cain did, for by it he was approved as an upright man, since God approved him for the offering he made; and by it he still continues to speak, though dead.

By faith Enoch was transplanted from earth, so that he did not experience dying; and he could not be found, because God had transplanted him from earth. For before he was transplanted from earth evidence was given him that he pleased God;

By faith Abraham, on being called, obeyed in starting off for a country which he was to receive as his own, and he did it in spite of the fact that he did not know where he was going.

And so there sprang from one man, and that dead as to any prospects for offspring, a people as numberless as the stars in the sky and as the sands beside the seashore.

These people all died victoriously as a result of their faith, although they did not receive the blessings promised; that is, because they really saw them in the far-off future and welcomed them, and so professed to be only foreigners and strangers here on earth.

For he considered the fact that God was able to raise people from the dead; and so from the dead, in a figure, he did receive him back.

By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who disobeyed God, because she had welcomed the scouts as friends.

Women by a resurrection received their dead again; others endured tortures, because they would not accept release, that they might rise to a better life.

for they did not try to bear the order, "Even if a wild animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death,"

to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks a better message than even Abel's did.

See to it that you do not refuse to listen to Him who is speaking to you. For if they did not escape, because they refused to listen to him who warned them here on earth, how much less can we, if we reject Him who is from heaven?

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes, forever.

May God, who gives us peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, who through the blood by which He ratified the everlasting covenant, is now the Great Shepherd of the sheep,