For to which of the angels did He ever say,
“You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You”? And again,“I will be a Father to Him
And He shall be a Son to Me”?

And of the angels He says,
“Who makes His angels winds,
And His ministers a flame of fire.”

But to which of the angels has He ever said,
“Sit at My right hand,
Until I make Your enemies
A footstool for Your feet”?

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.

For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty,

For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking.

“You have made him for a little while lower than the angels;
You have crowned him with glory and honor,
And have appointed him over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.

But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.

For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,

and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham.

Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.

For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house.

For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.

Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later;

Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me,
And saw My works for forty years.

For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,

For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?

And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.

For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said,
“As I swore in My wrath,
They shall not enter My rest,”
although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.

For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”;

Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience,

For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.

So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins;

and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.

But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,

For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God;

For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.

For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,

For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute.

so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him,

for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron?

For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.

For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar.

For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests.

For it is attested of Him,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”

For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness

(for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

(for they indeed became priests without an oath, but He with an oath through the One who said to Him,
“The Lord has sworn
And will not change His mind,
‘You are a priest forever’”);

Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens;

who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.

who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, “See,” He says, “that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.”

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

For finding fault with them, He says,
“Behold, days are coming, says the Lord,
When I will effect a new covenant
With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers
On the day when I took them by the hand
To lead them out of the land of Egypt;
For they did not continue in My covenant,
And I did not care for them, says the Lord.

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws into their minds,
And I will write them on their hearts.
And I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.

“And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen,
And everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
For all will know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.

“For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And I will remember their sins no more.”

For there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread; this is called the holy place.

but into the second, only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance.

which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience,

since they relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation.

and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh,

For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.

For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives.

For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,

Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,
“Sacrifice and offering You have not desired,
But a body You have prepared for Me;

In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.

After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor have You taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law),

By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,

waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,

Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

For yet in a very little while,
He who is coming will come, and will not delay.