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"?

In speaking of the angels he says, "He who changes his angels into winds, And his attendants into blazing fire!"

But to what angel did he ever say, 'Sit at my right hand, Until I make your enemies a footstool for you"?

Are not the angels all spirits in service, whom he sends on his errands for the good of those who are destined to possess salvation?

For if the message delivered by angels proved to be authentic, and every violation or neglect of it led to a corresponding penalty,

For it was not for angels that he destined the control of that world to be, that we are speaking of.

For someone has somewhere solemnly declared, "What is man? for you think of him; Or any man? for you care for him.

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!

but we do see Jesus, who was "made for a little while inferior to angels, crowned with glory and honor" because he suffered death, so that by the favor of God he might taste the bitterness of death on behalf of every human being.

For it was appropriate that he who is the great First Cause of the universe should, in guiding his many children to his glorious salvation, make their leader in it fully qualified through what he suffered.

For both he who purifies them and they who are purified spring from one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,

and free from their slavery men who had always lived in fear of death.

For of course it was not angels but the descendants of Abraham that he came to help.

For because he has himself been tempted in what he has suffered he is able to help others who are in trial.

For Jesus is entitled to as much more honor than Moses as the builder of a house is than the house he builds.

For every house has a builder, and the builder of the universe is God.

Where your forefathers put my doings to the proof for forty years, Though they saw them all the time.

For we are true partners with Christ if we really keep the conviction that we had at first unshaken to the very end.

For who was it that heard him speak and yet provoked him? Was it not all those who had escaped from Egypt under Moses' leadership?

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 he says somewhere of the seventh day, "On the seventh day God rested after all his work,"

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

So there must still be a promised Sabbath of Rest for God's people.

For all who are admitted to God's Rest rest after their work, just as God did after his.

For the message of God is a living and active force, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing through soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and keen in judging the thoughts and purposes of the mind.

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.

For every high priest who is chosen from among men is appointed to represent his fellow-men in their relations with God, and to offer gifts and sin-offerings.

and on this account he is obliged to offer sacrifices for sin, not only for the people but for himself as well.

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!"

For he says in another passage, "You are a priest forever of the priesthood of Melchizedek."

For Jesus in his life on earth offered prayers and entreaties, crying aloud with tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and because of his piety his prayer was heard.

and when he was fully qualified, he became a source of unending salvation for all who obey him,

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.

For anyone who is limited to milk is unacquainted with Christian teaching, for he is only an infant.

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

Let us therefore leave elementary Christian teaching alone and advance toward maturity. We must not be always relaying foundations, of repentance for wrong-doing, and of faith in God,

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.

Ground that drinks in frequent showers and produces vegetation that is of use to those for whom it is cultivated receives God's blessing.

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 when God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to make oath by, he did so by himself,

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.

This hope is like an anchor for our souls. It reaches up secure and strong into the sanctuary behind the heavenly curtain,

For this man Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was on his way back from defeating the kings, and gave him his blessing,

for none of Abraham's posterity was yet begotten at the time of his meeting with Melchizedek.

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?

For when there is a change in the priesthood, a change necessarily takes place in the Law as well.

For he of whom all this was said was related to a tribe no member of which ever officiated at the altar.

For it is perfectly clear that our Lord sprang from the tribe of Judah, with reference to which Moses said nothing at all about priests.

for he is appointed not for possessing any legal physical qualifications, but by virtue of a life that cannot end.

For the psalm bears witness, "You are a priest forever, of the priesthood of Melchizedek!"

(for there was nothing final about the Law), and a better hope begins to dawn, through which we may approach God.

for God took no oath in appointing the old priests, but he made oath to his appointment, when he said to him, "The Lord has sworn it and he will not change; You are a priest forever!"

Therefore, he is able to save forever all who come to God through him, because he lives and intercedes for them forever.

who does not need, as the old high priests did, to offer sacrifices every day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people??or this last he has done once for all, in offering up himself.

For the Law appoints to the high priesthood men full of imperfection; but this utterance about the making of the oath, which came long after the Law, appoints a son, fully qualified to be high priest forever.

Further, if he were still on earth, he would not be a priest at all, for there are priests enough provided to offer the gifts the Law prescribes??5 though the service they engage in is only a shadow and imitation of that in heaven. For when Moses was going to make the tent of worship he was warned, "Be sure to make it all just like the pattern you were shown on the mountain."

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

Not like the one that I made with their forefathers, On the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out from the land of Egypt, For they would not abide by their agreement with me, So I paid no attention to them,' says the Lord.

'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.

For I will be merciful to their misdeeds, And I will no longer remember their sins.' "

Even the first agreement provided regulations for worship, and a sanctuary that was fully equipped.

For a tent was erected, with the lamp and the table and the presentation bread in the outer part, which was called the sanctuary.

With these arrangements for worship, the priests used constantly to go into the outer part of the tent, in the performance of their rites,

but only the high priest could enter the inner part, and he but once a year, and never without taking some victim's blood, to offer on his own behalf and for the sins committed through ignorance by the people.

In all this the holy Spirit was seeking to show that there was no free access to the sanctuary while the outer tent was still standing.

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.

But when Christ came, as the high priest of the better system under which we live, he went once for all, through that greater, more perfect tent of worship not made by human hands nor a part of our material creation, into the sanctuary,

For if sprinkling ceremonially defiled persons with the blood of bulls and goats and with the ashes of a heifer purifies them physically,

how much more surely will the blood of the Christ, who with the eternal Spirit made himself an unblemished offering to God, purify our consciences from the old wrongdoing for the worship of the everliving God?

For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established,

for a will is valid only in the case of a person who is dead; it has no force as long as the testator is alive.

For when Moses had told all the regulations of the Law to all the people, he took calves' and goats' blood, along with water, crimson wool, and a bunch of hyssop, and sprinkled the roll of the Law and all the people,

By such means, therefore, these things that were only copied from the originals in heaven had to be purified, but the heavenly originals themselves required far better sacrifices than these.

For it was not a sanctuary made by human hands and only copied after the true one that Christ entered, but he went into heaven itself, in order to appear now on our behalf in the very presence of God.

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.

so the Christ too, after being offered in sacrifice once for all to carry away the sins of many, will appear again but without any burden of sin, to those who are eagerly waiting for him to come and save them.

For while the Law foreshadowed the blessings that were to come, it did not fully express them, and so the priests by offering the same sacrifices endlessly year after year cannot wholly free those who come to worship from their sins.

for bulls' and goats' blood is powerless to remove sin.

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.

You never cared for burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin!

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.

But Christ has offered for all time one sacrifice for sin, and has taken his seat at God's right hand,

from that time waiting for his enemies to be made his footstool.

For by that one sacrifice he has forever qualified those who are purified from sin to approach God.

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

But when these are forgiven, there is no more need of offerings for sin.

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

by the new, living way which he has opened for us, through the curtain, that is, his physical nature,

Let us hold unwaveringly to the hope that we profess, for he who has given us his promise may be trusted.

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,

For we know who it is that has said, "Vengeance belongs to me! I will pay back!" and in another place, "The Lord will be the judge of his people!"

For you showed sympathy with those who were in prison, and you put up with it cheerfully when your property was taken from you, for you knew that you had in yourselves a greater possession that was lasting.

You must not lose your courage, for it will be richly rewarded,

For "In a very little while He who is to come will come and not delay,