Are they not all helping spirits, who are sent out as servants to those whose heritage will be salvation?

For this reason there is the more need for us to give attention to the things which have come to our ears, for fear that by chance we might be slipping away.

What will come on us, if we do not give our minds to such a great salvation? a salvation of which our fathers first had knowledge through the words of the Lord, and which was made certain to us by those to whom his words came;

For he did not make the angels rulers over the world to come, of which I am writing.

You put all things under his feet. For in making man the ruler over all things, God did not put anything outside his authority; though we do not see everything under him now.

For, truly, he does not take on the life of angels, but that of the seed of Abraham.

Be not hard of heart, as when you made me angry, on the day of testing in the waste land,

And being angry I made an oath, saying, They may not come into my rest.

My brothers, take care that there is not by chance in any one of you an evil heart without belief, turning away from the living God:

As it is said, Today if you will let his voice come to your ears, be not hard of heart, as when you made him angry.

Who made him angry when his voice came to them? was it not all those who came out of Egypt with Moses?

And with whom was he angry for forty years? was it not with those who did evil, who came to their deaths in the waste land?

And to whom did he make an oath that they might not come into his rest? was it not to those who went against his orders?

So we see that they were not able to go in because they had no belief.

And, truly, the good news came to us, even as it did to them; but the hearing of the word did them no good, because they were not united in faith with the true hearers.

For those of us who have belief come into his rest; even as he has said, As I said in my oath when I was angry, They may not come into my rest: though the works were done from the time of the making of the world.

And in the same place he says again, They will not come into my rest.

So that as it is clear that some have to go in, and that the first hearers of the good news were not able to go in because they went against God's orders,

After a long time, again naming a certain day, he says in David, Today (as he had said before), Today if you will let his voice come to your ears, be not hard of heart,

For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have said anything about another day.

And there is nothing made which is not completely clear to him; there is nothing covered, but all things are open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

For we have not a high priest who is not able to be touched by the feelings of our feeble flesh; but we have one who has been tested in all points as we ourselves are tested, but without sin.

Then let us come near to the seat of grace without fear, so that mercy may be given to us, and we may get grace for our help in time of need.

And no man who is not given authority by God, as Aaron was, takes this honour for himself.

In the same way Christ did not take for himself the glory of being made a high priest, but was given it by him who said, You are my Son, this day I have given you being:

And though by this time it would be right for you to be teachers, you still have need of someone to give you teaching about the first simple rules of God's revelation; you have become like babies who have need of milk, and not of solid food.

For this reason let us go on from the first things about Christ to full growth; not building again that on which it is based, that is, the turning of the heart from dead works, and faith in God,

And then let themselves be turned away, it is not possible for their hearts to be made new a second time; because they themselves put the Son of God on the cross again, openly shaming him.

For God is true, and will not put away from him the memory of your work and of your love for his name, in the help which you gave and still give to the saints.

So that you may not be slow in heart, but may take as your example those to whom God has given their heritage, because of their faith and their long waiting.

So that we, who have gone in flight from danger to the hope which has been put before us, may have a strong comfort in two unchanging things, in which it is not possible for God to be false;

But this man, who was not of their family, took the tenth from Abraham, and gave a blessing to him to whom God had given his undertaking.

Now if it was possible for things to be made complete through the priests of the house of Levi (for the law was given to the people in connection with them), what need was there for another priest who was of the order of Melchizedek and not of the order of Aaron?

That is to say, not made by a law based on the flesh, but by the power of a life without end:

And as this is not without the taking of an oath

(For those were made priests without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by him who says of him, The Lord gave his oath, which he will not take back, that you are a priest for ever);

And it is true that there have been a great number of those priests, because death does not let them go on for ever;

Who has no need to make offerings for sins every day, like those high priests, first for himself, and then for the people; because he did this once and for ever when he made an offering of himself.

As a servant of the holy things and of the true Tent, which was put up by God, not by man.

If he had been on earth he would not have been a priest at all, because there are other priests who make the offerings ordered by the law;

Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand, to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; for they did not keep the agreement with me, and I gave them up, says the Lord.

And there will be no need for every man to be teaching his brother, or his neighbour, saying, This is the knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, great and small.

And I will have mercy on their evil-doing, and I will not keep their sins in mind.

When he says, A new agreement, he has made the first agreement old. But anything which is getting old and past use will not be seen much longer.

And over it were the winged ones of glory with their wings covering the mercy-seat; about which it is not possible now to say anything in detail.

But only the high priest went into the second, once a year, not without making an offering of blood for himself and for the errors of the people:

The Holy Spirit witnessing by this that the way into the holy place had not at that time been made open, while the first Tent was still in being;

And this is an image of the present time; when the offerings which are given are not able to make the heart of the worshipper completely clean,

But now Christ has come as the high priest of the good things of the future, through this greater and better Tent, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this world,

And has gone once and for ever into the holy place, having got eternal salvation, not through the blood of goats and young oxen, but through his blood.

So that even the first agreement was not made without blood.

For Christ did not go into a holy place which had been made by men's hands as the copy of the true one; but he went into heaven itself, and now takes his place before the face of God for us.

And he did not have to make an offering of himself again and again, as the high priest goes into the holy place every year with blood which is not his;

For the law, being only a poor copy of the future good things, and not the true image of those things, is never able to make the people who come to the altar every year with the same offerings completely clean.

For if this had been possible, would there not have been an end of those offerings, because the worshippers would have been made completely clean and would have been no longer conscious of sins?

Because it is not possible for the blood of oxen and goats to take away sins.

Not giving up our meetings, as is the way of some, but keeping one another strong in faith; and all the more because you see the day coming near.

But will not the man by whom the Son of God has been crushed under foot, and the blood of the agreement with which he was washed clean has been taken as an unholy thing, and who has had no respect for the Spirit of grace, be judged bad enough for a very much worse punishment?

So do not give up your hope which will be greatly rewarded.

For, having done what was right in God's eyes, you have need of waiting before his word has effect for you.

In a very little time he who is coming will come; he will not be slow.

But we are not of those who go back to destruction; but of those who have faith even to the salvation of the soul.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the sign that the things not seen are true.

By faith it is clear to us that the order of events was fixed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made from things which only seem to be.

By faith Enoch was taken up to heaven so that he did not see death; he was seen no longer, for God took him away: for before he was taken, witness had been given that he was well-pleasing to God:

And without faith it is not possible to be well-pleasing to him, for it is necessary for anyone who comes to God to have the belief that God is, and that he is a rewarder of all those who make a serious search for him.

By faith Noah, being moved by the fear of God, made ready an ark for the salvation of his family, because God had given him news of things which were not seen at the time; and through it the world was judged by him, and he got for his heritage the righteousness which is by faith.

So that from one man, who was near to death, came children in number as the stars in heaven, or as the sand by the seaside, which may not be numbered.

All these came to their end in faith, not having had the heritage; but having seen it with delight far away, they gave witness that they were wanderers and not of the earth.

By faith he went out of Egypt, not being turned from his purpose by fear of the wrath of the king; for he kept on his way, as seeing him who is unseen.

By faith he kept the Passover, and put the sign of the blood on the houses, so that the angel of destruction might not put their oldest sons to death.

By faith Rahab, the loose woman, was not put to death with those who had gone against God's orders, because she had taken into her house in peace those sent to see the land.

What more am I to say? For there would not be time to give the stories of Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets:

Wandering in waste places and in mountains and in holes in the rocks; for whom the world was not good enough.

And not one of these got the good things of the agreement, though they all had a good record through faith,

Because God had kept some better thing for us, so that it was not possible for them to become complete without us.

Having our eyes fixed on Jesus, the guide and end of our faith, who went through the pains of the cross, not caring for the shame, because of the joy which was before him, and who has now taken his place at the right hand of God's seat of power.

Give thought to him who has undergone so much of the hate of sinners against himself, so that you may not be tired and feeble of purpose.

Till now you have not given your blood in your fight against sin:

And you have not kept in mind the word which says to you as to sons, My son, do not make little of the Lord's punishment, and do not give up hope when you are judged by him;

It is for your training that you undergo these things; God is acting to you as a father does to his sons; for what son does not have punishment from his father?

But if you have not that punishment of which we all have our part, then you are not true sons, but children of shame.

At the time all punishment seems to be pain and not joy: but after, those who have been trained by it get from it the peace-giving fruit of righteousness.

And make straight roads for your feet, so that the feeble may not be turned out of the way, but may be made strong.

And that there may not be any evil liver, or any man without respect for God, like Esau, who let his birthright go for a plate of food.

For you have knowledge that even long after, when he was desiring the blessing for his heritage, he was turned away, though he made his request frequently and with weeping; because the past might not be changed.

You have not come to a mountain which may be touched, and is burning with fire, and to a black cloud, and a dark smoke, and a violent wind,

And to the sound of a horn, and the voice of words, the hearers of which made request that not a word more might be said to them:

But you have come to the mountain of Zion, to the place of the living God, to the Jerusalem which is in heaven, and to an army of angels which may not be numbered,

See that you give ear to his voice which comes to you. For if those whose ears were shut to the voice which came to them on earth did not go free from punishment, what chance have we of going free if we give no attention to him whose voice comes from heaven?

Whose voice was the cause of the shaking of the earth; but now he has made an oath, saying, There will be still one more shaking, not only of the earth, but of heaven.

Let married life be honoured among all of you and not made unclean; for men untrue in married life will be judged by God.

Do not be turned away by different strange teachings, because it is good for your hearts to be made strong by grace, and not by meats, which were of no profit to those who took so much trouble over them.

We have an altar from which those priests who are servants in the Tent may not take food.

Give ear to those who are rulers over you, and do as they say: for they keep watch over your souls, ready to give an account of them; let them be able to do this with joy and not with grief, because that would be of no profit to you.

But, brothers, take kindly the words which I have said for your profit; for I have not sent you a long letter.