After faith in the previous verse come hope and love respectively, here and in verse 24. These three nouns are linked in various parts of the New Testament, especially 1 Corinthians 13.7, 13. If possible, they should be dealt with in the same way in translation, to mark the relation between them. For example, if one is translated by a verb, all three should be. The text of King James Version, which has “faith” instead of hope, is not to be followed. Both Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version in different ways lose a little of the meaning by restructuring. The word translated firmly is not an adverb but an adjective modifying hope; and here as in some other passages, hope probably means the objects of hope, not a feeling with which we look to the future. The text therefore probably means “Let us hold on to our confession of (faith in) the unshakable things we hope for.” In Hebrews, as in the Old Testament, “faith” and “hope” are very close in meaning.

Let us hold on firmly to the hope may be expressed as “Let us continue to hope firmly” or “… strongly.” Sometimes this may even be expressed more effectively in a negative form; for example, “Let us not cease to hope for a moment.” If, however, the emphasis is to be placed upon “what is hoped for,” one may translate “Let us have complete confidence in what we hope for.”

Profess is a noun in the Greek, “profession (of hope),” and therefore does not have a tense. Most translations, like Good News Translation, use a verb in the present tense; Barclay has “the hope which we tell the world we possess.” Translator’s New Testament uses a past tense, linking the “profession of hope” with the time of baptism, “the hope which we have professed.” This is possible, since verse 22 refers to baptism. However, the following verses speak of Christian living in the present. A wider meaning, including both past and present action, is more likely.

It may be useful to render we profess as a distinct clause, or even a separate sentence related to hope; for example, “this is the hope we have spoken about to others” or “this is the hope which we have said we have confidence in.”

Good News Translation brings out the meaning of the second part of the verse, which Revised Standard Version translates literally. The focus, however, is on God, not on believers: “God, who gave the promises (6.13-19), is to be relied on.”Because we can trust God to keep his promise may be rendered as “because we know that God always does what he has promised to do” or “… will do what he has promised to do.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .