For to what angel did God ever say, "You are my Son, today I have become your Father"?

You made Him inferior to angels for a little while, yet you have crowned Him with glory and honor, you have set Him over the works of your hands,

You have put all things under His feet!" Now when He gave Him authority over everything, He did not leave a single thing that was not put under His authority. But as yet we do not see everything actually under His authority,

So I was indignant with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have never come to know my ways.'

For we have become real sharers in Christ, if we keep firm to the end the faith we had at first,

So let us fear that when the promise for us to be admitted to His rest is still remaining valid some one of you may be found to have missed it.

For we have had the good news told to us as well as they, but the message heard did them no good, because they were not by faith made one with those who heeded it.

For we who have believed are being admitted to that rest, just as He has said: "As in my anger I took oath, they shall not be admitted to my rest," although God's works had been completed at the creation of the world.

For if Joshua had really given them rest, He would not afterward have been speaking of another day.

No creature of His can escape God's sight, but everything is bare and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we have to give account.

Since then we have in Jesus, the Son of God, a great High Priest who has gone right up to heaven itself, let us continue to keep a firm hold on our profession of faith in Him.

For we do not have a High Priest who is incapable of sympathizing with us in our weaknesses, but we have One who was tempted in every respect as we are, and yet without committing any sin.

So Christ too did not take upon Himself the glory of being appointed High Priest, but it was God who said: "You are my Son; I have today become your Father,"

I have much to say to you about Him, but it is difficult to make it clear to you, since you have become so dull in your spiritual senses.

For although you ought to be teachers of others because you have been Christians so long, you actually need someone to teach you over and over again the very elements of the truths that God has given us, and you have gotten into such a state that you are in constant need of milk instead of solid food.

But solid food belongs to full-grown men who on account of constant use have their faculties trained to distinguish good and evil.

For it is impossible for those who have once for all been enlightened and have experienced the gift from heaven, who have been made sharers of the Holy Spirit

and have experienced how good God's message is and the mighty powers of the age to come,

and then have fallen by the wayside -- it is impossible, I say, to keep on restoring them to their first repentance, since they continue to crucify the Son of God to their detriment and hold Him up to contempt.

For God is not so unjust as to forget the work you have done and the love you have shown His name in the service you have rendered for your fellow-Christians, and still are doing.

so that by these two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to prove false, we who have taken refuge with Him may have encouragement strong enough to make us seize upon the hope that lies ahead of us.

This hope we have as an anchor for our souls, secure and safe, which reaches up behind the heavenly veil,

Now see how great this man must have been that even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of his spoils.

And those of the descendants of Levi who accept the priesthood are authorized by the law to collect a tenth from the people; that is, from their own brothers, though they have sprung from Abraham.

Now if perfection had been reached through the Levitical priesthood -- for on it as a basis even the law was enacted for the people-- what further need would there have been of appointing a different priest, with the rank of Melchizedek, instead of designating one with the rank of Aaron?

for the law had never made anything perfect -- and so a better hope is brought to us, through which we have approach to God.

And the Levitical priests, on the one hand, have become numerous, because they have been prevented by death from continuing in office,

Now the main point in what I am saying is this: We have such a High Priest as this, one who has taken His seat at the right hand of God's majestic throne in heaven

For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; so this High Priest too must have some sacrifice to offer,

For if the first covenant had been faultless, there could have been no room for a second one.

But when Christ came as the High Priest of good things that have already taken place, He went by way of that greater and more perfect tent of worship, not made by human hands, that is, not belonging to this material creation,

for, if that had been the case, He would have had to suffer over and over again, ever since the creation of the world. But, as it is, once at the close of the ages He has appeared, to put away sin by His sacrifice.

Otherwise, would they not have ceased offering them, because those who offered them, having once been purified, would have had no further consciousness of sins?

"Sacrifice and offering you did not wish, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt-offerings and sin-offerings you never took delight.

Then I said, 'See, I have come, just as the Scripture writes about me in the book, O God, to do your will.'"

He afterward said, "See, I have come to do your will." He is taking away the first to let the second take its place.

Since then, my brothers, we have free access to the real sanctuary through the blood of Jesus,

and since in Him we have a Great Priest over the house of God,

For if we go willfully sinning after we have received full knowledge of the truth, there is no sacrifice left to be offered for our sins,

But we are not of a disposition to draw back so as to perish, but we have faith that leads to the saving of the soul.

And if they had been cherishing the memory of the country they had left, they would have had an opportunity to go back.

because he preferred to suffer hardships with the people of God than to have the passing enjoyment that results from sin,

Therefore, as we have so vast a crowd of spectators in the grandstands, let us throw off every impediment and the sin that easily entangles our feet, and run with endurance the race for which we are entered,

You have not yet, as you have struggled on against sin, resisted to the point of pouring out your blood,

and you have forgotten the encouragement which is addressed to you as sons: "My son, refrain from thinking lightly of the discipline the Lord inflicts, and giving up when you are corrected by Him.

For you have not come to a blazing fire that can be touched, to gloom and darkness, storm

But you have come to Mount Zion, even to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless hosts of angels,

to the festal gathering and assembly of God's firstborn sons enrolled as citizens in heaven, to a Judge who is the God of all, to the spirits of upright men who have attained perfection,

Do not remain neglectful of hospitality to strangers, for by it some have entertained angels without knowing it.

You must have a turn of mind that is free from avarice; you must be content with what you have, for God Himself has said, "I will never fail you, I will never forsake you."

You must stop being carried away with varied and strange teachings. For it is a good thing for the heart to be strengthened by God's spiritual strength, not by special kinds of food, from which those adhering to them have gotten no good.

We Christians have an altar at which the ministers of the Jewish tent of worship have no right to eat.

for we have no permanent city here, but we are searching for that city which is to be ours.

Continue to obey and to be submissive to your leaders, for they are ever watching in defense of your souls, as men who will have to give account of their trust. Treat them in this way, so that they may work with joy and not with grief.

Pray for me, for I am sure that I have a clear conscience, and in everything I want to live a noble life.

I beg you, brothers, to listen patiently to this message, for I have written you only a short letter.