Chapter 3

Jesus is greater than Moses

¹So, Christian friends, think carefully about who Jesus is. Like us, God has chosen you to serve him. We tell people that we believe in Jesus as the messenger that God has sent. He helps us as God's great priest .

²God is the one who chose him for this work. He serves God faithfully , as Moses also faithfully served God's people long ago.

³We know that someone who builds a house is more important than the house itself. In the same way, we should praise Jesus more than we praise Moses, because Jesus is greater.

⁴Every house has someone who built it. But God is the one who has built all things.

⁵We say that Moses served God well, like a servant in God's house. He took care of all God's people. In this way, Moses showed clearly the message that God would speak later.

⁶But Christ serves in God's house as a son, not only as a servant. He is the leader of God's family. We belong to God's family if we continue to believe in Christ. We must be brave. We must continue to show people clearly that we trust God. He will do what he has promised to do.

God has a special place of rest for his people

⁷God's Holy Spirit says this:

‘You must listen when you hear God speak today.

⁸Do not refuse to obey him.

Do not be like God's people many years ago.

When they travelled in the wilderness ,

they turned against me.

They wanted to see if I would punish them.

⁹For 40 years your ancestors saw the great things that I did.

But still they did not obey me.

¹⁰That is why I became angry with them.

I said, “They always want to do what is wrong.

They refuse to understand my message.”

¹¹Because of that, I promised to punish them.

Because I was angry with them, I said,

“They will never arrive in my special place of rest.” ’

¹²So be careful, my Christian friends. Do not refuse to trust God. That would be a very bad thing to do. Do not turn away from the God who lives for ever.

¹³Instead, help each other to be strong every day. Today, you can still hear God's message. While that is still true, do not refuse to obey God. Do not think that sin will not hurt you. That is a lie .

¹⁴We must continue to trust Christ very well, as we did when we first believed in him. We must continue to trust him until the end of our lives. Then we will share in everything that is his.

¹⁵We have seen what the Bible says:

‘You must listen when you hear God speak today.

Do not refuse to obey him.

Do not be like God's people many years ago,

when they turned against God.’

¹⁶Who were those people who heard God speak? All of them were the people that Moses led away from Egypt. They heard God's message, but they refused to obey him.

¹⁷Who was God angry with for 40 years? He was angry with those same people. They did what was wrong. So they died and their bodies remained in the wilderness.

¹⁸God promised to punish them, because they refused to obey him. He said, ‘They will never arrive in my special place of rest.’

¹⁹So we must be careful ourselves! Those people did not trust God. As a result, they never arrived in God's special place.