Bible Gateway passage: Hebrews 2 - New International Version - UK (2024)

Warning to pay attention

2We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. ²For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, ³how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. ⁴God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Jesus made fully human

⁵It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. ⁶But there is a place where someone has testified:

‘What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
⁷You made them a little^[a] lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honour
⁸and put everything under their feet.’^[b][c]

In putting everything under them,^[d] God left nothing that is not subject to them.^[e] Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.^{[f] 9}But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

¹⁰In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. ¹¹Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.^{[g] 12}He says,

‘I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the assembly I will sing your praises.’^[h]

¹³And again,

‘I will put my trust in him.’^[i]

And again he says,

‘Here am I, and the children God has given me.’^[j]

¹⁴Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death– that is, the devil– ¹⁵and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷For this reason he had to be made like them,^[k] fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.