And have a guest-room ready for me, too, for I hope that through your prayers I shall have the gracious privilege of coming to you.

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.

No one must say, when he is tempted to do evil, "I have a temptation from God to do evil," for God cannot be tempted to do evil, and He never tempts anyone to do so.

But you, in contrast, have humiliated the poor man. Are not the rich men those who oppress you and drag you to court?

and one of you says to him, "Blessings on you, keep warm, eat until you have aplenty," without giving him the things that are needed for the body, what good does it do?

But someone may say, "You have faith, and I have good deeds. Show me your faith without any good deeds, but I will show you mine by my good deeds."

For every kind of beasts and birds, of reptiles and sea animals, can be, or have been, tamed by man;

What causes wars and quarrels among you? Is it not your different desires which are ever at war within your bodies? You desire things and cannot have them, and so you commit murder.

You covet things, but cannot acquire them, and so you quarrel and fight. You do not have them, because you do not ask for them.

although you do not have the slightest knowledge of tomorrow. What is the nature of your life? It is really nothing but a mist which appears for a little while and then disappears.

your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will testify against you and devour your flesh like fire. You have stored up these things for the last days.

See, the wages that you have kept back from the laborers who reaped your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

Here on earth you have lived in luxury and self-indulgence; you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter.

You have condemned and murdered the upright man; he offers no resistance.

See how we call those who thus endured happy! You have heard how patiently Job endured and have seen how the Lord finally blessed him, because the Lord is tenderhearted and merciful.

You must continue to love Him, although you have never seen Him, but because you do believe in Him, although you do not now see Him, you must continue to rejoice with an unutterable and triumphant joy,

It was made known to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in their searching for these things that have already been told to you by those who through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven brought you the good news. The angels long to take a peep into these things.

because you know that you have not been ransomed with things that perish as silver or gold, from the futile way of living taught by your fathers,

Since you have purified your souls by obeying the truth, in sincere love for the brotherhood you must love one another heartily and fervently,

because you have been born anew, not from a germ that perishes but from one that does not perish, by the word of the living and everlasting God.

since you have learned by experience that the Lord is kind.

He bore our sins in His own body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to uprightness. By His wounds you have been healed,

for once you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of Your souls.

They were submissive to their husbands, as Sarah, for example, obeyed Abraham and called him master. You have become true daughters of hers, if you practice doing right and cease from every fear.

but in your hearts be consecrated to Christ as Lord, and always be ready to make your defense to anyone who asks a reason for the hope you have. But you must do it in gentleness and reverence,

For the time that is past is enough for you to have accomplished what the heathen like to do, leading lives that are steeped in sensuality, lustful desires, drunkenness, carousing, revelry, dissipation, and idolatry that leads to lawlessness,

but they will have to give account for it to Him who is ready to judge living and dead.

As all of you have received your spiritual talents, you must keep on using them in serving one another, as good trustees of God's many-sided favor.

Cast every worry you have upon Him, because He cares for you.

And God, the giver of every spiritual blessing, who through your union with Christ has called you to His eternal glory, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself make you perfect, firm, and strong,

By Silvanus, our faithful brother, as I regard him, I have written you this short letter, to encourage you and to testify that this is the true, unmerited favor of God. Stand firm in it.

Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ have obtained the same precious faith that we have:

It is through these that He has given us His precious and glorious promises, so that through them, after you have escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires, you may come to share in the divine nature.

For if you have these qualities and they continue to increase in you, they will make you neither idle nor unproductive in attaining a full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, I will always remind you of these things, although you know them and are firmly grounded in the truth that you already have.

Yes, I will be in earnest, so that every time you have occasion, after I have gone away, you may call these things to mind.

So we have the message of the prophets more certainly guaranteed. Please pay attention to this message as to a lamp that is shining in a dismal place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts;

They have eyes full of adultery and insatiable by sin. They practice enticing unsteady souls. They have trained their hearts in greed. They are doomed to a curse!

They have left the straight road and gone astray. They have followed the road that Balaam, the son of Beor, trod, who fell in love with the profits of wrongdoing

For if, after men have escaped the corrupting ways of the world through a full knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they again become entangled in them and are conquered by them, then their last condition is worse than their former one.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of uprightness than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command committed to their trust.

This is the second letter, dearly beloved, that I have already written to you, in both of which I am trying by reminders to stir up your unsullied minds

The Lord is not slow about His promise, in the sense in which some think of slowness, but He is really dealing patiently with you, because He is not willing for any to perish but for all to have an opportunity to repent?

In accordance with His promise we are expecting new heavens and a new earth, in which uprightness will have its permanent home.

So, dearly beloved, since you have been forewarned, you must always be on your guard against being led astray by the errors of lawless men, and so against falling away from your present firmness;