Animal blood is insufficient

1You 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.

2Otherwise 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?

3However, those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins,

4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ¹¹⁹

“I have come to do Your will, O God”

5Therefore, upon coming into the world He[S] says: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but You prepared a body for me; ¹²⁰

6with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased.

7Then 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.’ ” ¹²¹

8First 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),

9then He says, “Yes indeed, I have come to do Your will, O God.” ¹²²He removes the first in order to establish the second.

10By that will ¹²³we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. ¹²⁴

Christ perfects forever

11Now every priest has stood ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices that can never take away sins;

12but He Himself, having offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, sat down at God's right.

13Since that time He is waiting until His enemies are placed as a footstool for His feet,

14because by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. ¹²⁵

15Now 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,

17and I will not at all remember their sins and lawless deeds.’ ” ¹²⁶

18Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. ¹²⁷

Hold fast the confession of the Hope

19Therefore, brothers, having courage to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,

20by a new and living way that He inaugurated for us, through the curtain, that is to say, His flesh,

21and having a Great Priest over the house of God,

22let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts having been sprinkled ¹²⁸from an evil conscience and our body having been washed with clean water. ¹²⁹

23Let us hold fast the confession of the Hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

24And let us contemplate one another, for the stirring up of love and good works,

25not 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

26Because, if we deliberately keep on sinning after having received the real knowledge of the Truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

27just a certain fearful anticipation of judgment and fierce fire that is ready to consume the hostiles.

28Anyone who rejected Moses' law died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

29Of 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, ¹³⁰and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

30For we know Him who said, “ ‘Vengeance is up to me,’ says the Lord, ¹³¹‘I will repay.’ ” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” ¹³²

31It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God!

A word of encouragement

32However, remember those earlier days in which, having been enlightened, you endured a great struggle of sufferings:

33partly being publicly exposed to both insults and oppression, and partly siding with those who were so treated.

34Indeed, you also shared in the suffering of my chains; ¹³³you even accepted the plundering of your possessions with joy, knowing that you have for yourselves a better and enduring possession in the heavens.

35So do not throw away your confidence, which has a great recompense.

36You need perseverance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.

37For in a very little while: “He who is coming will come and will not delay.

38Now the righteous one will live by faith, yet if he backs away, my soul has no pleasure in him.” ¹³⁴

39But we are not of those who back away into ruin, ¹³⁵but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.