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⁵Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the wilderness.

⁶These things took place as examples to keep us from craving evil things as they did.

¹We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.

⁷Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”

⁶So the next day they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

⁷Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

⁸How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it. They have sacrificed to it and said, ‘These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”

⁸We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.

¹While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab,

²who also invited them to the sacrifices for their gods. And the people ate and bowed down to these gods.

³So Israel joined in worshiping Baal of Peor, and the anger of the LORD burned against them.

⁴Then the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that His fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”

⁵So Moses told the judges of Israel, “Each of you must kill all of his men who have joined in worshiping Baal of Peor.”

⁶Just then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and the whole congregation of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁷On seeing this, Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, got up from the assembly, took a spear in his hand,

⁸followed the Israelite into his tent, and drove the spear through both of them—through the Israelite and on through the belly of the woman. So the plague against the Israelites was halted,

⁹but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

⁹We should not test Christ, as some of them did, and were killed by snakes.

¹⁰And do not complain, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel.

¹²So the one who thinks he is standing firm should be careful not to fall.

¹⁰Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’

¹¹So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’”

⁹where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work.

¹⁰For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”

¹¹So I swore on oath in My anger, “They shall never enter My rest.”

¹⁶For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

¹⁸And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed?

¹⁹So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter.

¹²See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God.

¹³But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

²⁰If indeed they have escaped the corruption of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, only to be entangled and overcome by it again, their final condition is worse than it was at first.

²¹It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn away from the holy commandment passed on to them.

²²Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”

¹¹As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

²⁴But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, committing the same abominations as the wicked, will he live? None of the righteous acts he did will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness and sin he has committed, he will die.

²⁴When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’

²⁵On its return, it finds the house swept clean and put in order.

²⁶Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and dwell there. And the final plight of that man is worse than the first.”

²⁰But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea, for it cannot be still, and its waves churn up mire and muck.

²¹“There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”