10
Animal blood is insufficient
1 You see, the Law is but a shadow of the good things to come, not their actual matter, so it can never perfect those who approach with the same sacrifices that they offer endlessly, year after year.
2 Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have had no more consciousness of sins, having been cleansed once for all?
3 However, those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins,
4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
“I have come to do Your will, O God”
5 Therefore, upon coming into the world He[S] says:
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
but You prepared a body for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Yes indeed, I have come to do Your will, O God
—thus it is written about me in the scroll of the book.’ ”
8 First He says, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not desire, nor were You pleased with them” (which are offered according to the Law),
9 then He says, “Yes indeed, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He removes the first in order to establish the second.
10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Christ perfects forever
11 Now every priest has stood ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices that can never take away sins;
12 but He Himself, having offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, sat down at God's right.
13 Since that time He is waiting until His enemies are placed as a footstool for His feet,
14 because by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
15 Now the Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this, after having foreseen it:
16 “ ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days,’ says the Lord,
‘I will put my laws on their hearts
and I will write them on their minds,
17 and I will not at all remember
their sins and lawless deeds.’ ”
18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
Hold fast the confession of the Hope
19 Therefore, brothers, having courage to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,
20 by a new and living way that He inaugurated for us, through the curtain, that is to say, His flesh,
21 and having a Great Priest over the house of God,
22 let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts having been sprinkled from an evil conscience and our body having been washed with clean water.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of the Hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
24 And let us contemplate one another, for the stirring up of love and good works,
25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves (like some are doing), but exhorting one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
A severe warning
26 Because, if we deliberately keep on sinning after having received the real knowledge of the Truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
27 just a certain fearful anticipation of judgment and fierce fire that is ready to consume the hostiles.
28 Anyone who rejected Moses' law died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be deemed worthy who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has regarded as unholy the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know Him who said, “ ‘Vengeance is up to me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will repay.’ ” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”
31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God!
A word of encouragement
32 However, remember those earlier days in which, having been enlightened, you endured a great struggle of sufferings:
33 partly being publicly exposed to both insults and oppression, and partly siding with those who were so treated.
34 Indeed, you also shared in the suffering of my chains; you even accepted the plundering of your possessions with joy, knowing that you have for yourselves a better and enduring possession in the heavens.
35 So do not throw away your confidence, which has a great recompense.
36 You need perseverance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
37 For in a very little while:
“He who is coming will come and will not delay.
38 Now the righteous one will live by faith,
yet if he backs away, my soul has no pleasure in him.”
39 But we are not of those who back away into ruin, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.