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³⁷ Who can command and have it done,
   if the Lord has not ordained it?
³⁸ Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
   that good and bad come?
³⁹ Why should any who draw breath complain
   about the punishment of their sins?

⁴⁰ Let us test and examine our ways,
   and return to the Lord.
⁴¹ Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands
   to God in heaven.
⁴² We have transgressed and rebelled,
   and you have not forgiven.

⁴³ You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us,
   killing without pity;
⁴⁴ you have wrapped yourself with a cloud
   so that no prayer can pass through.
⁴⁵ You have made us filth and rubbish
   among the peoples.

⁴⁶ All our enemies
   have opened their mouths against us;
⁴⁷ panic and pitfall have come upon us,
   devastation and destruction.
⁴⁸ My eyes flow with rivers of tears
   because of the destruction of my people.

⁴⁹ My eyes will flow without ceasing,
   without respite,
⁵⁰ until the Lord from heaven
   looks down and sees.
⁵¹ My eyes cause me grief
   at the fate of all the young women in my city.

⁵² Those who were my enemies without cause
   have hunted me like a bird;
⁵³ they flung me alive into a pit
   and hurled stones on me;
⁵⁴ water closed over my head;
   I said, ‘I am lost.’

⁵⁵ I called on your name, O Lord,
   from the depths of the pit;
⁵⁶ you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear
   to my cry for help, but give me relief!’
⁵⁷ You came near when I called on you;
   you said, ‘Do not fear!’

⁵⁸ You have taken up my cause, O Lord,
   you have redeemed my life.

The Rest That God Promised

4Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. ²For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.^{* 3}For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God^* has said,
‘As in my anger I swore,
“They shall not enter my rest” ’,
though his works were finished at the foundation of the world. ⁴For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’ ⁵And again in this place it says, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ⁶Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, ⁷again he sets a certain day—‘today’—saying through David much later, in the words already quoted,
‘Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.’
⁸For if Joshua had given them rest, God^* would not speak later about another day. ⁹So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; ¹⁰for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his. ¹¹Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.

12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Jesus the Great High Priest

14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested^* as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Life in the Spirit

8There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit^* of life in Christ Jesus has set you^* free from the law of sin and of death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin,^* he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.^{* 5}For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit^* set their minds on the things of the Spirit.^{* 6}To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit^* is life and peace. ⁷For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, ⁸and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,^* since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit^* is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ^* from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through^* his Spirit that dwells in you.