Hebrews 11
The full text of Hebrews 11 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
2 For by it the people of old were commended.
3 By faith we understand that the worlds were formed at the command of God, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God testifying about his gifts; and through it, though he is dead, he still speaks.
5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him up. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever comes to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
7 By faith Noah, warned about things not yet seen, in reverent fear built an ark to save his household. By this he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went out to a place he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he lived as a stranger in the promised land, as in a foreign country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11 By faith even Sarah herself, though she was past the age, received power to conceive, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
13 All these died in faith without having received the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from afar, confessing that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
14 People who say such things show that they are seeking a homeland of their own.
15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 But as it is, they desire a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; he who had received the promises was about to offer up his one and only son,
18 the one of whom it was said, "Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned."
19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning their future.
21 By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, as his end drew near, spoke of the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions about his bones.
23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
25 choosing rather to be mistreated along with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch them.
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do the same, they were drowned.
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
31 By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had welcomed the spies in peace.
32 And what more shall I say? Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets,
33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions,
34 quenched the fury of the flames, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, and routed foreign armies.
35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. But others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
36 Still others endured mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, mistreated—
38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in caves and holes in the ground.
39 And all of these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised,
40 since God had planned something better for us, so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Translation notes (15)
- Hebrews 11:1a This can also be translated, 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' The Greek words hypostasis, meaning 'assurance' or 'substance,' and elenchos, meaning 'conviction' or 'evidence,' are both deliberately open to multiple interpretations.
- Hebrews 11:3a Greek aiōnas (αἰῶνας), literally 'ages', is rendered here as 'worlds' because the author uses the term spatially as well as temporally, denoting the whole created order across time (compare Hebrews 1:2). The phrase rhēmati theou, 'by the word of God', refers to God's spoken command, echoing the creation account of Genesis 1.
- Hebrews 11:5a The wording follows Genesis 5:24 in the Septuagint, which renders the Hebrew 'Enoch walked with God' as 'Enoch pleased God' (euērestēsen), the source of the statement here that he 'pleased God'. Likewise metetethē, 'was taken up', and 'he was not found' reproduce the Septuagint's language for the Hebrew laqach, 'took'.
- Hebrews 11:10a Greek technitēs, 'craftsman', and dēmiourgos, 'builder' or 'maker', appear together only here in the New Testament; dēmiourgos occurs nowhere else in it. The city's foundations stand in deliberate contrast to the tents of the preceding verse, marking Abraham's hope as fixed on a permanent, God-made dwelling.
- Hebrews 11:11a This can also be translated, 'By faith Abraham, even though Sarah herself was barren, received power to father a child.' The subject of the verb in the Greek text is genuinely disputed.
- Hebrews 11:17a Greek monogenēs (μονογενής), 'one and only', signifies uniqueness rather than sole parentage; Abraham also fathered Ishmael, but Isaac alone was the son of promise. The Greek pairs a perfect verb, treating the offering as accomplished in intent, with an imperfect conveying an action begun but not completed—the sacrifice God interrupted.
- Hebrews 11:19a The phrase rendered here as 'in a manner of speaking' is the Greek en parabolē (ἐν παραβολῇ), literally 'in a parable' or 'as a figure'. The writer means that Isaac's deliverance from the altar was a figurative resurrection, prefiguring God's power to raise the dead, which Abraham had already reckoned (logisamenos) to be within God's ability.
- Hebrews 11:21a The quotation follows the Septuagint of Genesis 47:31, which read the unpointed Hebrew consonants as matteh, 'staff' (מַטֶּה); the Masoretic Text vocalizes the same consonants as mittah, 'bed' (מִטָּה), so that Jacob bows at the head of his bed. The two readings differ only in vowels supplied centuries after the consonantal text was fixed.
- Hebrews 11:23a Greek asteios (ἀστεῖος), 'beautiful' or 'fine', is the word used in the Septuagint of Exodus 2:2, where Moses's mother sees that he is a goodly child; Stephen employs the same term in Acts 7:20. The king's edict is Pharaoh's command in Exodus 1:22 that every Hebrew son be cast into the Nile.
- Hebrews 11:26a Greek ton oneidismon tou Christou is literally 'the reproach of the Christ', with Christos, 'anointed one'. Since Moses lived long before Jesus, the phrase likely echoes Psalm 89:50-51, where God's people bear the reproach of his anointed; the author presents Moses as sharing in advance the suffering that would culminate in the Messiah.
- Hebrews 11:28a The phrase ho olothreuōn (ὁ ὀλοθρεύων), 'the destroyer', echoes the Septuagint wording of Exodus 12:23, where the Lord does not permit 'the destroying one' to enter the blood-marked houses. The Greek proschysis, 'sprinkling' or 'pouring', occurs only here in the New Testament and refers to the application of the lamb's blood to the doorposts.
- Hebrews 11:30a The Greek participle kyklōthenta (κυκλωθέντα), 'having been encircled', summarizes the ritual circuits of Joshua 6, in which the army marched around the city once daily for six days and seven times on the seventh. The passive epesan, 'fell', ascribes the collapse to no human assault, consistent with the chapter's insistence that the outcome rested on faith in God's word.
- Hebrews 11:31a Greek pornē (πόρνη) plainly means 'prostitute', matching Hebrew zonah in Joshua 2:1. An old apologetic tradition softened the term: the Targum to Joshua renders it pundeqita, 'innkeeper', and Josephus likewise calls Rahab an innkeeper. The writer of Hebrews, like James 2:25, retains the harder word, making her faith, not her respectability, the point.
- Hebrews 11:35a The verb etympanisthēsan, 'were tortured', derives from tympanon, a drum-shaped rack on which victims were stretched and beaten to death; the allusion is likely to the martyrdoms of 2 Maccabees 6–7. The kreittonos anastaseōs, 'better resurrection', stands in contrast to the earlier clause: the women's dead were restored to mortal life, while the martyrs awaited a resurrection beyond death altogether.
- Hebrews 11:37a Some manuscripts add the phrase, 'they were put to the test between sawn in two and were put to death.'
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