A description of the man-made sanctuary that accompanied the first covenant.

1To continue: In the first covenant, God regulated how people should perform rituals, and he told them to make [MTY] a sanctuary.

2That sanctuary was a tent that the Israelites set up. In its outer room there was the lampstand and the table on which they put the bread that the priests presented to God. That room was called ‘the holy place’.

3Behind the curtain inside the holy place there was another room. That was called ‘the very holy place’.

4It had an altar, made from gold, for burning incense. It also had the chest which they called the chest of the covenant. All its sides were covered with gold. In it was the golden pot which contained pieces of the food they called manna. That was the food with which God miraculously fed the people before they entered the promised land. In the chest there was also Aaron’s walking stick that budded to prove that he was God’s true priest. In the chest were also the stone tablets on which God had written the Ten Commandments.

5On top of the chest were figures of winged creatures that symbolized God’s glory. Their wings overshadowed the chest’s lid where the high priest sprinkled the blood ◄to atone for/to forgive► those who had sinned. I do not need to write about these things in detail now.

Offerings that were made under the first covenant were not able to remove a sense of guilt for sin.

6After all those things were prepared {After they had prepared all those things like that} in the two rooms of the tent, the Jewish priests habitually went into the outer room of the tent to perform their rituals.

7But into the inner room, only the Supreme Priest went, once a year. He always took [LIT] the blood of animals that they had slaughtered. He offered them to God for his own sins and for the sins that other people had committed. They included sins that they did not realize were sinful.

8By those things the Holy Spirit indicated that just like God did not reveal the way for ordinary people to enter into the inner room while the outer room still existed [MET], similarly he did not reveal the way for ordinary people to enter the presence of God while the Jewish system of offering sacrifices was in effect.

9The things that the priests did inside the outer room [MTY] symbolized what was true during the time when the first covenant was in effect. According to the first covenant (OR, In that outer room), priests offered gifts and other sacrifices to God. But by offering them, the people who brought them were unable to make themselves feel that they were no longer guilty for having sinned.

10They brought those gifts and made those sacrifices according to regulations concerning things to eat and drink, and according to rules that required people to wash various things. God declared that those regulations about our bodies were to be in effect until he put into effect the new covenant; that was a better system.

Christ redeemed us by offering his own blood as a sacrifice.

11But when Christ came as our Supreme Priest, he brought the good things that are now available. When he appeared, he went into God’s presence in heaven. That is like a [MET] very great and perfect tent not made by humans {which no human made} [SYN]; that is, it is not part of the world God created. It was better than the tent Moses set up here on earth.

12When a Supreme Priest goes into the inner room in the tent each year, he takes goats’ blood and calves’ blood to offer as a sacrifice. But Christ did not do that. It was as though he went into that very holy place only once, taking his own blood with him. By doing that, he eternally redeemed us.

13The priests sprinkle on people goats’ blood and bulls’ blood and the water that has been filtered through the ashes of a red heifer that has been completely burned. By performing that ritual, they can ritually cleanse the bodies of those who are ceremonially unclean. Furthermore, performing those rituals enabled people to have fellowship with God again.

14So, because we know what Christ accomplished when his blood flowed when he died for us [PRS, MTY], we will be very certain that we are not guilty of having done those things that those who are spiritually dead do. As a result, we can serve God, who is all-powerful. The priests always offer to God animals with no defects. Similarly, when Christ offered himself as a sacrifice to God, he was sinless [MET]. He did that as a result of God’s eternal Spirit helping him.

Christ has put the new covenant into effect with his own blood.

15By dying for us, Christ ◄redeemed/set free from the penalty for their sins► even those who disobeyed the conditions of (OR, during the time of) the first covenant. So, because no one could be made perfect by obeying the old covenant, now Christ establishes between God and people a new covenant. He does that in order that those whom God has chosen may eternally have the blessings that God has promised them.

16A covenant is like a will. In the case of a will, in order to put its provisions into effect, someone must prove that the one who made it has died.

17A will goes into effect only when the one who makes the will has died. It is not in effect when the one who made it is still alive.

18And so God put the first covenant into effect only [LIT] by means of animals’ blood that was shed when they were slaughtered.

19After Moses had declared to all the Israelites everything that God commanded in the laws that God gave him, he took calves’ and goats’ blood mixed with water. He dipped into it scarlet wool that he tied around a sprig of hyssop. Then he sprinkled with some of the blood the scroll itself containing God’s laws. Then he sprinkled more of that blood on all the people,

20saying to them, “This is the blood which brings into effect the covenant that God commanded that you obey.”

21Likewise, he sprinkled with that blood the tent and every object that they used in performing rituals.

22It was by sprinkling blood that they ritually cleansed almost everything. That was what was stated in God’s laws. If blood is not shed when people offer a sacrifice, God cannot forgive the person who is making the sacrifice.

The Jewish priests kept offering the blood of animal sacrifices every year, but Christ sacrificed himself once to take away our guilt.

23So, by rituals like that, it was necessary for the priests to cleanse the things that symbolized what Christ does [MTY] in heaven. But God has to consecrate the people who will enter [MTY] heaven by means of better sacrifices than those.

24Christ did not enter a sanctuary that humans made. That one only represented the true sanctuary. Instead, he entered heaven itself, in order to now be in God’s presence to plead with God for us.

25The Jewish Supreme Priest enters the very holy place once every year, taking blood that is not his own, to offer it as a sacrifice. But when Christ entered heaven, it was not in order to offer himself repeatedly like that.

26If that were so, he would have needed to suffer and shed his blood repeatedly since the time when God created the world. But instead, in this final age, Christ has appeared once in order that by sacrificing himself he could cause that people no longer will be punished for their sins.

27All people must die once, and after that God will judge them for their sins.

28Likewise, when Christ died, God offered him once to be a sacrifice, to punish him instead of the many people who had sinned. He will come to earth a second time, not in order to sacrifice himself again for those who have sinned, but in order to complete his saving those who expectantly wait for him.