1 The first covenant had indeed its regulations for worship, and a material sanctuary.
2 A tent was set up, the outer tent, containing the lampstand, the table, and the loaves of the Presence; this is called the Holy place.
3 But behind the second veil was the tent called the Holy of Holies,
4 containing the golden altar of incense, and also the ark of the covenant covered all over with gold, which held the golden pot of manna, the rod of Aaron that once blossomed, and the tablets of the covenant;
5 above this were the cherubims of the Glory, overshadowing the mercy seat ??matters which it is impossible for me to discuss at present in detail.
6 Such were the arrangements for worship. The priests constantly enter the first tent, in the discharge of their ritual duties,
7 but the second tent is entered only once a year by the high priest alone ??and it must not be without blood, which he presents on behalf of himself and the errors of the People.
8 By this the holy Spirit means that the way into the Holiest Presence was not disclosed so long as the first tent
9 (which foreshadowed the present age) was still standing, with its offerings of gifts and sacrifices which cannot possibly make the conscience of the worshipper perfect,
10 since they relate merely to food and drink and a variety of ablutions ??outward regulations for the body, that only hold till the period of the New Order.
11 But when Christ arrived as the high priest of the bliss that was to be, he passed through the greater and more perfect tent which no hands had made (no part, that is to say, of the present order),
12 not taking any blood of goats and oxen but his own blood, and entered once for all into the Holy place. He secured an eternal redemption.
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on defiled persons, give them a holiness that bears on bodily purity,
14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who in the spirit of the eternal offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve a living God?
15 He mediates a new covenant for this reason, that those who have been called may obtain the eternal inheritance they have been promised, now that a death has occurred which redeems them from the transgressions involved in the first covenant.
16 Thus, in the case of a will, the death of the testator must be announced.
17 A will only holds in cases of death; it is never valid so long as the testator is alive.
18 Hence even the first covenant of God's will was not inaugurated apart from blood;
19 for after Moses had announced every command in the Law to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, together with water, scarlet wool and hyssop, sprinkling the book and all the people,
20 and saying, This is the blood of that covenant which is God's command for you.
21 He even sprinkled with blood the tent and all the utensils of worship in the same way.
22 In fact, one might almost say that by Law everything is cleansed with blood. No blood shed, no remission of sins!
23 Now, while the copies of the heavenly things had to be cleansed with sacrifices like these, the heavenly things themselves required nobler sacrifices.
24 For Christ has not entered a holy place which human hands have made (a mere type of the reality!); he has entered heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, like the high priest entering the holy place every year with blood that was not his own: ??26 for in that case he would have had to suffer repeatedly, ever since the world was founded. Nay, once for all, at the end of the world, he has appeared with his self-sacrifice to abolish sin.
27 And just as it is appointed for men to die once and after that to be judged,
28 so Christ, after being once sacrificed to bear the sins of many, will appear again, not to deal with sin but for the saving of those who look out for him.