Be careful and do not refuse are closely linked; Phillips “be sure you do not refuse”; similarly New English Bible. Refuse to hear is the immediate meaning in this context of a word which can mean to “reject” someone or something. The author probably did not distinguish sharply between rejecting God or Christ, and rejecting what they say; but the latter is in focus here.
For many languages do not refuse to hear is a double negative, since refuse to hear implies not hearing or not paying attention. Such double negatives must often be translated as positive expressions. If so, do not refuse to hear him who speaks must be rendered as “pay close attention to the one who speaks.”
Those who refused to hear may be expressed idiomatically; for example, “those who stopped their ears,” or “those who put their hands over their ears,” or “those who made themselves deaf to what was said.”
It is uncertain who is meant by the phrases (a) him who speaks, (b) the one who gave the divine message on earth, and (c) the one who speaks from heaven. Gave the divine message renders a single verb, which sometimes means “warns” (Revised Standard Version), but can be used of any divine oracle (see 8.5 and 11.7). Speaks in (c) is implicit; one could equally well understand gave the divine message. (a) and (c) may be God or Christ; (b) may be God or Moses; if (c) is Christ, (b) may also be Christ. Most commentators think of God as the speaker referred to throughout the verse, but verse 19 does not specify that the one who spoke was God, and verse 24 has just mentioned the blood of Jesus as “speaking” (phrase (a) has the same Greek verb). If it is clearer in translation to state who the speaker is, it is probably safest to make it God, at least in (a). The Greek suggests that the speaker is the same throughout. It may be helpful to make some of these identifications explicit in translation. The Translator’s New Testament text, for example, takes him who speaks as Jesus. Barclay and Translator’s New Testament identify the one who gave the divine message on earth as Moses, and Barclay identifies the one who speaks from heaven as Christ but translates “the one who comes from heaven,” recalling 10.37. However, “comes” adds something not in the text.
For most languages the phrase the divine message must be expressed as “the message that comes from God.” But this rendering may cause complications, if God is specifically mentioned as the one who gives this message on earth.
The rest of the verse introduces a “how much more” type of comparison, on which see the comments on 2.1, all the more firmly, and 9.14, and see also Matthew 6.30. This is a negative comparison, implying “How much more shall we not escape?” which Good News Translation rightly simplifies into How much less shall we escape…! In some languages this may cause a problem, since one either escapes or does not. In this case “How much more certain is it that we shall not escape?” is an alternative. Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente has “All the more shall we be condemned,” avoiding the rhetorical question. Revised Standard Version‘s “if” does not imply any doubt or condition; it means “if, as was the case, they did not escape….” Good News Translation turns this into a separate statement, linked with what follows by then, and meaning “therefore.”
In a high percentage of languages, conditional clauses tend to precede the main clause, and therefore the order of the final sentence may need to be changed; for example, “If we reject the one who speaks from heaven, we certainly shall not escape.” Such a positive statement is often clearer than an exclamation involving some degree of probability (for example, how much less).
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 .