Hebrews 8-9

Hebrews 8

¹Now of the things we are saying this is the chief point: We have such a high priest, who has taken his place at the right hand of God's high seat of glory in heaven,

²As a servant of the holy things and of the true Tent, which was put up by God, not by man.

³Now every high priest is given authority to take to God the things which are given and to make offerings; so that it is necessary for this man, like them, to have something for an offering.

⁴If 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;

⁵Being servants of that which is a copy and an image of the things in heaven, as Moses, when he was about to make the Tent, had special orders from God: for, See, he said, that you make everything like the design which you saw in the mountain.

⁶But now his position as priest is higher. because through him God has made a better agreement with man, based on the giving of better things.

⁷For if that first agreement had been as good as possible, there would have been no place for a second.

⁸For, protesting against them, he says, See, the days are coming when I will make a new agreement with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah;

⁹Not 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.

¹⁰For this is the agreement which I will make with the people of Israel after those days: I will put my laws into their minds, writing them in their hearts: and I will be their God, and they will be my people:

¹¹And 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.

¹²And I will have mercy on their evil-doing, and I will not keep their sins in mind.

¹³When 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.

Hebrews 9

¹Now the first agreement had its rules of worship, and a holy order.

²For the first Tent was made ready, having in it the vessels for the lights and the table and the ordering of the bread; and this is named the holy place.

³And inside the second veil was the place which is named the Holy of holies;

⁴Having a vessel of gold in it for burning perfumes, and the ark of the agreement, which was covered with gold and which had in it a pot made of gold for the manna, and Aaron's rod which put out buds, and the stones with the writing of the agreement;

⁵And 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.

⁶Now while these things were in existence, the priests went into the first Tent at all times, for prayer and the making of offerings.

⁷But 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:

⁸The 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;

⁹And 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,

¹⁰Because they are only rules of the flesh, of meats and drinks and washings, which have their place till the time comes when things will be put right.

¹¹But 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,

¹²And 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.

¹³For if the blood of goats and oxen, and the dust from the burning of a young cow, being put on the unclean, make the flesh clean:

¹⁴How much more will the blood of Christ, who, being without sin, made an offering of himself to God through the Holy Spirit, make your hearts clean from dead works to be servants of the living God?

¹⁵And for this cause it is through him that a new agreement has come into being, so that after the errors under the first agreement had been taken away by his death, the word of God might have effect for those who were marked out for an eternal heritage.

¹⁶Because where there is a testament, there has to be the death of the man who made it.

¹⁷For a testament has effect after death; for what power has it while the man who made it is living?

¹⁸So that even the first agreement was not made without blood.

¹⁹For when Moses had given all the rules of the law to the people, he took the blood of goats and young oxen, with water and red wool and hyssop, and put it on the book itself and on all the people,

²⁰Saying, This blood is the sign of the agreement which God has made with you.

²¹And the blood was put on the Tent and all the holy vessels in the same way.

²²And by the law almost all things are made clean with blood, and without blood there is no forgiveness.

²³For this cause it was necessary to make the copies of the things in heaven clean with these offerings; but the things themselves are made clean with better offerings than these.

²⁴For 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.

²⁵And 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;

²⁶For then he would have undergone a number of deaths from the time of the making of the world: but now he has come to us at the end of the old order, to put away sin by the offering of himself.

²⁷And because by God's law death comes to men once, and after that they are judged;

²⁸So Christ, having at his first coming taken on himself the sins of men, will be seen a second time, without sin, by those who are waiting for him, for their salvation.