Study Desk

Yes, my brother, please do me this favor for the Lord's sake. Give me this encouragement in Christ.

One more thing—please prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that God will answer your prayers and let me return to you soon.

For God never said to any angel what he said to Jesus: "You are my Son. Today I have become your Father." God also said, "I will be his Father, and he will be my Son."

Therefore, angels are only servants—spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation.

For the message God delivered through angels has always stood firm, and every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished.

For in one place the Scriptures say, "What are mere mortals that you should think about them, or a son of man that you should care for him?

Yet for a little while you made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.

What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position "a little lower than the angels"; and because he suffered death for us, he is now "crowned with glory and honor." Yes, by God's grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone.

God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.

For he said to God, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters. I will praise you among your assembled people."

Because God's children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.

Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.

For he was faithful to God, who appointed him, just as Moses served faithfully when he was entrusted with God's entire house.

For every house has a builder, but the one who built everything is God.

There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years.

For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.

And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn't it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness?

For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn't share the faith of those who listened to God.

For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, "In my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest,'" even though this rest has been ready since he made the world.

So God's rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God.