Study Desk

For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.

For it is declared: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."

(for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer.

If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law.

For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.

For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary.

But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.

This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.

He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence.

Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.