Young's Literal Translation YLT
The Message Bible MSG
1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the apostle and chief priest of our profession, Christ Jesus,
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So, my dear Christian friends, companions in following this call to the heights, take a good hard look at Jesus. He's the centerpiece of everything we believe,
2 being stedfast to Him who did appoint him, as also Moses in all his house,
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faithful in everything God gave him to do. Moses was also faithful,
3 for of more glory than Moses hath this one been counted worthy, inasmuch as more honour than the house hath he who doth build it,
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but Jesus gets far more honor. A builder is more valuable than a building any day.
4 for every house is builded by some one, and He who the all things did build [is] God,
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Every house has a builder, but the Builder behind them all is God.
5 and Moses indeed [was] stedfast in all his house, as an attendant, for a testimony of those things that were to be spoken,
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Moses did a good job in God's house, but it was all servant work, getting things ready for what was to come.
6 and Christ, as a Son over his house, whose house are we, if the boldness and the rejoicing of the hope unto the end we hold fast.
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Christ as Son is in charge of the house.
7 Wherefore, (as the Holy Spirit saith, `To-day, if His voice ye may hear --
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That's why the Holy Spirit says, Today, please listen;
8 ye may not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of the temptation in the wilderness,
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don't turn a deaf ear as in "the bitter uprising," that time of wilderness testing!
9 in which tempt Me did your fathers, they did prove Me, and saw My works forty years;
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Even though they watched me at work for forty years, your ancestors refused to let me do it my way; over and over they tried my patience.
10 wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, Always do they go astray in heart, and these have not known My ways;
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And I was provoked, oh, so provoked! I said, "They'll never keep their minds on God; they refuse to walk down my road."
11 so I sware in My anger, If they shall enter into My rest -- !')
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Exasperated, I vowed, "They'll never get where they're going, never be able to sit down and rest."
12 See, brethren, lest there shall be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in the falling away from the living God,
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So watch your step, friends. Make sure there's no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course, diverting you from the living God.
13 but exhort ye one another every day, while the To-day is called, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of the sin,
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For as long as it's still God's Today, keep each other on your toes so sin doesn't slow down your reflexes.
14 for partakers we have become of the Christ, if the beginning of the confidence unto the end we may hold fast,
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If we can only keep our grip on the sure thing we started out with, we're in this with Christ for the long haul.
15 in its being said, `To-day, if His voice ye may hear, ye may not harden your hearts, as in the provocation,'
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These words keep ringing in our ears: Today, please listen; don't turn a deaf ear as in the bitter uprising.
16 for certain having heard did provoke, but not all who did come out of Egypt through Moses;
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For who were the people who turned a deaf ear? Weren't they the very ones Moses led out of Egypt?
17 but with whom was He grieved forty years? was it not with those who did sin, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?
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And who was God provoked with for forty years? Wasn't it those who turned a deaf ear and ended up corpses in the wilderness?
18 and to whom did He swear that they shall not enter into His rest, except to those who did not believe? --
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And when he swore that they'd never get where they were going, wasn't he talking to the ones who turned a deaf ear?
19 and we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief.
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They never got there because they never listened, never believed.