1Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son,* whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains* all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
‘You are my Son;
today I have begotten you’?
Or again,
‘I will be his Father,
and he will be my Son’?
6And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’
7Of the angels he says,
‘He makes his angels winds,
and his servants flames of fire.’
8But of the Son he says,
‘Your throne, O God, is* for ever and ever,
and the righteous sceptre is the sceptre of your* kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.’
10And,
‘In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
11 they will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like clothing;
12 like a cloak you will roll them up,
and like clothing* they will be changed.
But you are the same,
and your years will never end.’
13But to which of the angels has he ever said,
‘Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’?
14Are not all angels* spirits in the divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
2Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. 2For if the message declared through angels was valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty, 3how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, 4while God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will.
5 Now God* did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels.
6But someone has testified somewhere,
‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them,*
or mortals, that you care for them?*
7 You have made them for a little while lower* than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honour,*
8 subjecting all things under their feet.’
Now in subjecting all things to them, God* left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them,
9but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower* than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God* he might taste death for everyone.
10 It was fitting that God,* for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father.* For this reason Jesus* is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,*
12saying,
‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,*
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’
13And again,
‘I will put my trust in him.’
And again,
‘Here am I and the children whom God has given me.’
14 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
16For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham.
17Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters* in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.
18Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.
3Therefore, brothers and sisters,* holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also ‘was faithful in all* God’s* house.’ 3Yet Jesus* is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honour than the house itself. 4(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5Now Moses was faithful in all God’s* house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. 6Christ, however, was faithful over God’s* house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm* the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
‘Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
as on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors put me to the test,
though they had seen my works
10for forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation,
and I said, “They always go astray in their hearts,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 As in my anger I swore,
“They will not enter my rest.” ’
12Take care, brothers and sisters,* that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.
13But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today’, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.
15As it is said,
‘Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’
16Now who were they who heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses?
17But with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who were disobedient?
19So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
8Now the main point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent* that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up. 3For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5They offer worship in a sanctuary that is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly one; for Moses, when he was about to erect the tent,* was warned, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’ 6But Jesus* has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises. 7For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one.
8 God* finds fault with them when he says:
‘The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah;
9 not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors,
on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt;
for they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I had no concern for them, says the Lord.
10 This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach one another
or say to each other, “Know the Lord”,
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful towards their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.’
13In speaking of ‘a new covenant’, he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.
9Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. 2For a tent* was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the Presence;* this is called the Holy Place. 3Behind the second curtain was a tent* called the Holy of Holies. 4In it stood the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which there were a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; 5above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy-seat.* Of these things we cannot speak now in detail.
6 Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent* to carry out their ritual duties; 7but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year, and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people. 8By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent* is still standing. 9This is a symbol* of the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper, 10but deal only with food and drink and various baptisms, regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things right.
11 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come,* then through the greater and perfect* tent* (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), 12he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit* offered himself without blemish to God, purify our* conscience from dead works to worship the living God!
15 For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.* 16Where a will* is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17For a will* takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18Hence not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19For when every commandment had been told to all the people by Moses in accordance with the law, he took the blood of calves and goats,* with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the people, 20saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that God has ordained for you.’ 21And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent* and all the vessels used in worship. 22Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. 24For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; 26for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgement, 28so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
10Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it* can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach.
2Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshippers, cleansed once for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sin?
3But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year.
4For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5Consequently, when Christ* came into the world, he said,
‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body you have prepared for me;
6 in burnt-offerings and sin-offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, “See, God, I have come to do your will, O God”
(in the scroll of the book* it is written of me).’
8When he said above, ‘You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt-offerings and sin-offerings’ (these are offered according to the law),
9then he added, ‘See, I have come to do your will.’ He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.
10And it is by God’s will* that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.
12But when Christ* had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God’,
13and since then has been waiting ‘until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.’
14For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
15And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
16 ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds’,
17he also adds,
‘I will remember* their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’
18Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
19 Therefore, my friends,* since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 20by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 25not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
26 For if we wilfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27but a fearful prospect of judgement, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy ‘on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 29How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? 30For we know the one who said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ 31It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,
33sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.
34For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting.
35Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.
36For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
37For yet
‘in a very little while,
the one who is coming will come and will not delay;
38 but my righteous one will live by faith.
My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.’
39But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.
11Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2Indeed, by faith* our ancestors received approval. 3By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.*
4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable* sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith* he still speaks. 5By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and ‘he was not found, because God had taken him.’ For it was attested before he was taken away that ‘he had pleased God.’ 6And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith.
8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised.* 12Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, ‘as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.’
13 All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, 14for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 16But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.
17 By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, 18of whom he had been told, ‘It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named after you.’ 19He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. 20By faith Isaac invoked blessings for the future on Jacob and Esau.
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New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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v 2.9.2
30 June 2021