Eager expectation, particularly of something fearful or dreadful. Used once in the New Testament in Hebrews 10:27 to describe the 'fearful expectation of judgment' that awaits those who persistently reject God's truth.
Ekdochē appears in one of the most sobering passages in Hebrews: 'Only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God' (Hebrews 10:27). The word carries the sense of waiting for something inevitable — the way a condemned man awaits his sentence. This is not about loss of salvation through ordinary struggle, but about deliberate, sustained apostasy. The ekdochē — the dreadful expectation — is the spiritual condition of the apostate.