For to what angel did God ever say, "You are my Son! I have today become your Father"? Or again, "I will become his Father, and he shall become my Son"?

You have loved right and hated wrong! That is why God, your God, has anointed you with exhilarating oil beyond all your comrades."

And you will fold them up like a mantle, And change them as one changes his coat. But you are always the same, and your years will have no end!"

This is why we must give the very closest attention to the message we have heard, to keep from ever losing our hold upon it.

You made him for a little while inferior to angels; Yet you have crowned him with glory and honor, And you have put him in charge of the works of your hands!

You have put everything under his feet!" In thus making everything subject to man, God left nothing that was not subjected to him. But we do not as yet see everything made subject to him,

Therefore since these children referred to have the same mortal nature, Jesus also shared it, like them, in order that by his death he might dethrone the lord of death, the devil,

Therefore, my fellow-Christians, who have likewise heard the heavenly invitation, observe how faithful Jesus, the commissioner and high priest of our religion,

That was why I was angry with that generation, And I said, 'Their minds are always wandering, And they have never found my paths.'

but encourage one another every day, as long as we can still speak of Today, so that no one of you may have his heart hardened by the pleasantness of sin.

We ought therefore to fear that when the promise of admission to his Rest is still open, some one of you may be found to have failed to reach it.

For we have had good news preached to us, just as they did, but the message they heard did them no good because they did not agree through faith with what they heard.

For we who have believed are admitted to that Rest, of which he said, "As I made oath in my anger, They shall never be admitted to my Rest!" And yet God's work was finished at the creation of the world,

For if Joshua had really brought them rest God would not afterward have spoken of another day.

No being created can escape God's sight, but everything is bare and helpless before the eyes of him with whom we have to reckon.

Since then we have in Jesus, the Son of God, a great high priest who has gone up into heaven, let us keep firm hold of our religion.

For our high priest is not one who is incapable of sympathy with our weaknesses, but he has been tempted in every way just as we have, without committing any sin.

So even Christ did not claim for himself the dignity of the high priesthood, but he was appointed to it by him who said to him, "You are my Son! I have today become your Father!"

I have much to say to you about this, but it is difficult to make it clear to you, because you have become so slow of apprehension.

For although from the length of your Christian experience you ought to be teaching others, you actually need someone to teach you over again the very elements of Christian truth, and you have come to need milk instead of solid food.

But full-grown men have a right to solid food, for their faculties are trained by practice to distinguish right and wrong.

For it is impossible to arouse people to a fresh repentance when they have once for all come into the light and had a taste of the gift from heaven, and shared in the holy Spirit

and yet have fallen back, for they crucify the Son of God on their own account, 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 showed for his cause, in giving help to your fellow-Christians as you still do.

For men make oath by something greater than themselves, and they accept an oath as settling finally any disagreement they may have.

so that by these two unalterable things, which make it impossible for God to break his promise, we who have taken refuge with him may be greatly encouraged to seize upon the hope that is offered to us.

Now see how great this man must have been to have the patriarch Abraham give him a tenth of the spoil.

Now if anything final had been really accomplished through the Levitical priesthood, for even the giving of the Law was based upon it, what further need would there have been of appointing a different priest of the priesthood of Melchizedek, instead of choosing one of the priesthood of Aaron?

Now the main point in what I am saying is this: We have such a high priest as this, and he has taken his seat in heaven at the right hand of God's Majesty,

But every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, and so this high priest also must have some sacrifice to offer.

For if that first agreement had been perfect, there would have been no occasion for a second one.

'For this is the agreement that I will make with the house of Israel, In those later days,' says the Lord; 'I will put my laws into their minds, And write them on their hearts, And they will have me for their God, And I will have them for my people.

And they will not have to teach their townsmen and their brothers to know the Lord, For they will all know me, From the lowest to the highest.

since they have to do only with food and drink and various washings??aterial regulations in force only until the time for the new order.

And this is why he is the negotiator of a new agreement, in order that as someone has died to deliver them from the offenses committed under the old agreement, those who have been offered it may receive the unending inheritance they have been promised.

for then he would have had to suffer death over and over, ever since the creation of the world. But, as it is, once for all at the close of the age he has appeared, to put an end to sin by his sacrifice.

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to offer these sacrifices, because those who offered them, having once been purified, would have had no further consciousness of sin?

They really only serve to remind the people annually of the sins they have committed,

That is why the Christ, when he was coming into the world, said, "You have not wished sacrifice or offering, but you have provided a body for me.

So I said, 'See, I have come! as the Book of the Law says of me, O God, to do your will!' "

At first he says, "You never wished or cared for sacrifices or offerings, or burnt-offerings or sacrifices for sin"??ll of which the Law prescribes??9 and then he adds, "See, I have come to do your will!" He is taking away the old to put the new in its place.

And it is through his doing of God's will that we have been once for all purified from sin through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ in sacrifice.

And we have the testimony of the holy Spirit to this, for after saying,

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

and since in him we have a great priest set over the house of God,

For if we choose to go on sinning after we have so fully learned the truth, there is no sacrifice left to be offered for our sins,

But we will not draw back and perish, but we will have faith and save our souls.

but without faith it is impossible to please him; for whoever would approach God must have faith in his existence and in his willingness to reward those who try to find him.

Faith enabled Abraham to obey when God summoned him to leave his home for a region which he was to have for his own, and to leave home without knowing where he was going.

Faith made even Sarah herself able to have a child, although she was past the time of life for it, because she thought, that he who had made the promise would keep it.

And if it had been the country from which they had come to which their thoughts turned back, they would have found an opportunity to return to it.

You have not yet resisted unto death in your struggle with sin,

and you have forgotten the challenge addressed to you as God's sons, "My son, do not think lightly of the Lord's discipline, Or give up when he corrects you.

But if you have none of that discipline which all sons undergo, you are illegitimate children, and not true sons.

When our earthly fathers disciplined us we treated them with respect; should we not far more submit to the Father of our spirits, and so have life?

For it is no tangible blazing fire that you have come up to, no blackness and darkness and storm,

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

Do not forget to be hospitable to strangers, for by being so some, without knowing it, have had angels as their guests.

You must not be avaricious; you must be content with what you have, for God himself has said, "I will never let go of you or desert you!"

You must not be carried away with strange varieties of teaching. The true way to steadfastness of heart is through God's mercy, not through scruples about food, which have never done their adherents any good.

Our altar is one at which those who serve the tent of worship have no right to eat.

for we have no permanent city here on earth, but we are in search of the city that is to come.

Pray for me, for I am sure I have a clear conscience, and I mean in every way to live an upright life.

I beg you brothers, to listen patiently to this appeal, for I have written you but briefly.