Hebrews 3
The full text of Hebrews 3 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in a heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.
2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house.
3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.
4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.
5 Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later,
6 but Christ was faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we boast.
7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
in the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me by trial
and saw my works
10 for forty years.
That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.'
11 So I swore in my anger,
'They shall never enter my rest.'"
12 Watch out, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.
13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called "Today," so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.
14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
15 As it is said:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion."
16 For who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom did he swear that they would never enter his rest, if not to those who were disobedient?
19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of their unbelief.
Translation notes (8)
- Hebrews 3:1a This is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus receives the title apostolos (ἀπόστολος), 'one sent', preparing the comparison with Moses, whom God likewise sent. The Greek phrase tes homologias hemon, literally 'of our confession', is rendered here as 'whom we confess'.
- Hebrews 3:2a The wording echoes Numbers 12:7, where God declares Moses faithful "in all my house." The Greek tō poiēsanti auton, literally 'the one who made him', denotes appointment to office rather than creation, a usage paralleled in the Septuagint of 1 Samuel 12:6, and is rendered here as 'the one who appointed him'.
- Hebrews 3:6a Some manuscripts add "firm to the end" after "the hope in which we boast."
- Hebrews 3:9a Quoting Psalm 95 after the Septuagint, the author attaches 'for forty years' to the people's seeing of God's works, whereas in the Masoretic Text of the psalm the forty years belong to God's loathing of that generation; Hebrews 3:17 reflects the latter connection. The Greek epeirasan... en dokimasia is literally 'tested by trial'.
- Hebrews 3:11a Greek ei eiseleusontai, literally 'if they shall enter', reproduces a Hebrew oath formula in which the unstated consequence makes the 'if' an emphatic denial; hence 'they shall never enter'. The noun katapausis, 'rest', translates the Hebrew menuchah of Psalm 95:11 and becomes the key term the writer develops through Hebrews 4.
- Hebrews 3:14a Greek metochoi (μέτοχοι), 'partakers', repeats the term applied in verse 1 to those who share a heavenly calling, binding the two passages together. The phrase rendered 'original confidence' is literally 'the beginning of the hupostasis', where hupostasis (ὑπόστασις) means 'assurance' or 'firm standing', the same word used of faith's substance in Hebrews 11:1.
- Hebrews 3:16a This can also be read as statements: "For some who heard rebelled—but not all who came out of Egypt led by Moses." The original Greek text, which lacks accents, allows for either interpretation.
- Hebrews 3:17a The Greek kola (κῶλα), rendered here as 'bodies', literally means 'limbs' or 'carcasses'; the author echoes the Septuagint of Numbers 14:29 and 32, where the same word describes the fallen rebels. The verb prosochthisen, 'was angry', is drawn from Psalm 95:10, the text the author has been expounding since Hebrews 3:7.
About this translation
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