New Testament · Letter

Hebrews 3

Do Not Harden Your Hearts

Moses was faithful as a servant; Jesus is faithful as a Son. The wilderness generation heard God's voice and refused to listen. Today, if you hear his voice...

King James Version BSB KJV
Read the commentary What this chapter means, the background behind it, and why it still matters

1Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;

2Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.

3For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.

4For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.

5And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;

6But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

7Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,

8Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

9When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.

10Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.

11So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)

12Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

13But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

14For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;

15While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

16For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.

17But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?

18And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?

19So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Commentary

Hebrews 3, explained

What Hebrews 3 is saying

The author compares Jesus and Moses, arguing that while Moses was faithful as a servant within God's house, Christ is faithful as the Son over that house. This sets up the second major warning, drawn from Psalm 95 and the wilderness generation's failure at Kadesh-Barnea. The exhortation to 'hear His voice today' introduces the temporal urgency that characterizes the epistle's paraenesis.

The background behind it

The comparison with Moses would be particularly pointed for Jewish Christian readers, for whom Moses held unparalleled status as lawgiver and mediator. The Kadesh-Barnea rebellion (Numbers 13-14), where Israel refused to enter Canaan despite God's promise, serves as the paradigmatic example of faithless disobedience in Jewish tradition.

Themes running underneath

The servant-son distinction is theologically significant: Moses' faithfulness testified to future revelation, while Christ's authority is constitutive of the house itself. The warning against hardened hearts (sklerynein) echoes prophetic critiques and anticipates the epistle's later discussion of the new covenant's interior transformation.

Why it still matters

This passage confronts the danger of a faith that once responded but has grown calloused. The repeated 'today' insists that faithfulness is not a past accomplishment but an ongoing posture requiring daily renewal and mutual encouragement.

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Scripture text: King James Version — public domain.

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