Hebrews 10:1–39

¹For since the Law has a shadow of the good things to come, but not the very substance of the things, [men] can never with the same sacrifices from year to year which they offer continually make those who approach perfect.²Otherwise, would the [sacrifices] not have stopped being offered, because those rendering sacred service who had been cleansed once for all time would have no consciousness of sins anymore?³To the contrary, by these sacrifices there is a reminding of sins from year to year,⁴for it is not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take sins away.

⁵Hence when he comes into the world he says: “‘Sacrifice and offering you did not want, but you prepared a body for me.⁶You did not approve of whole burnt offerings and sin [offering].’⁷Then I said, ‘Look! I am come (in the roll of the book it is written about me) to do your will, O God.’”⁸After first saying: “You did not want nor did you approve of sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin [offering]”—[sacrifices] that are offered according to the Law—⁹then he actually says: “Look! I am come to do your will.” He does away with what is first that he may establish what is second.¹⁰By the said “will” we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.

¹¹Also, every priest takes his station from day to day to render public service and to offer the same sacrifices often, as these are at no time able to take sins away completely.¹²But this [man] offered one sacrifice for sins perpetually and sat down at the right hand of God,¹³from then on awaiting until his enemies should be placed as a stool for his feet.¹⁴For it is by one [sacrificial] offering that he has made those who are being sanctified perfect perpetually.¹⁵Moreover, the holy spirit also bears witness to us, for after it has said:¹⁶“‘This is the covenant that I shall covenant toward them after those days,’ says Jehovah. ‘I will put my laws in their hearts, and in their minds I shall write them,’”¹⁷[it says afterwards:] “And I shall by no means call their sins and their lawless deeds to mind anymore.”¹⁸Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

¹⁹Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness for the way of entry into the holy place by the blood of Jesus,²⁰which he inaugurated for us as a new and living way through the curtain, that is, his flesh,²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God,²²let us approach with true hearts in the full assurance of faith, having had our hearts sprinkled from a wicked conscience and our bodies bathed with clean water.²³Let us hold fast the public declaration of our hope without wavering, for he is faithful that promised.²⁴And let us consider one another to incite to love and fine works,²⁵not forsaking the gathering of ourselves together, as some have the custom, but encouraging one another, and all the more so as ​YOU​ behold the day drawing near.

²⁶For if we practice sin willfully after having received the accurate knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins left,²⁷but [there is] a certain fearful expectation of judgment and [there is] a fiery jealousy that is going to consume those in opposition.²⁸Any man that has disregarded the law of Moses dies without compassion, upon the testimony of two or three.²⁹Of how much more severe a punishment, do ​YOU​ think, will the man be counted worthy who has trampled upon the Son of God and who has esteemed as of ordinary value the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has outraged the spirit of undeserved kindness with contempt?³⁰For we know him that said: “Vengeance is mine; I will recompense”; and again: “Jehovah will judge his people.”³¹It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of [the] living God.

³²However, keep on remembering the former days in which, after ​YOU​ were enlightened, ​YOU​ endured a great contest under sufferings,³³sometimes while ​YOU​ were being exposed as in a theater both to reproaches and tribulations, and sometimes while ​YOU​ became sharers with those who were having such an experience.³⁴For ​YOU​ both expressed sympathy for those in prison and joyfully took the plundering of ​YOUR​ belongings, knowing ​YOU​ yourselves have a better and an abiding possession.

³⁵Do not, therefore, throw away ​YOUR​ freeness of speech, which has a great reward to be paid it.³⁶For ​YOU​ have need of endurance, in order that, after ​YOU​ have done the will of God, ​YOU​ may receive the [fulfillment of the] promise.³⁷For yet “a very little while,” and “he who is coming will arrive and will not delay.”³⁸“But my righteous one will live by reason of faith,” and, “if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”³⁹Now we are not the sort that shrink back to destruction, but the sort that have faith to the preserving alive of the soul.