But remember the former days when you endured a harsh conflict of suffering after you were enlightened.

Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees,

“Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness.

so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and perseverance inherit the promises.

But Melchizedek who does not share their ancestry collected a tithe from Abraham and blessed the one who possessed the promise.

So with these things prepared like this, the priests enter continually into the outer tent as they perform their duties.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He had received the promises, yet he was ready to offer up his only son.

“Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering and they have not known my ways.’

As it says, “Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

And every priest stands day after day serving and offering the same sacrifices again and again – sacrifices that can never take away sins.

let us draw near with a sincere heart in the assurance that faith brings, because we have had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in things relating to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.

So God again ordains a certain day, “Today,” speaking through David after so long a time, as in the words quoted before, “O, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts.”

“This is the covenant that I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws on their hearts and I will inscribe them on their minds,”

These all died in faith without receiving the things promised, but they saw them in the distance and welcomed them and acknowledged that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth.

“For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people.