10 For since the Law has merely a rude outline (foreshadowing) of the good things to come—instead of fully expressing those things—it can never by offering the same sacrifices continually year after year make perfect those who approach [its altars].

² For if it were otherwise, would [these sacrifices] not have stopped being offered? Since the worshipers had ^[a]once for all been cleansed, they would no longer have any guilt or consciousness of sin.

³ But [as it is] these sacrifices annually bring a fresh remembrance of sins [to be atoned for],

⁴ Because the blood of bulls and goats is powerless to take sins away.

⁵ Hence, when He [Christ] entered into the world, He said, Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired, but instead You have made ready a body for Me [to offer];

⁶ In burnt offerings and sin offerings You have taken no delight.

⁷ Then I said, Behold, here I am, coming to do Your will, O God—[to fulfill] what is written of Me in the volume of the Book.^(A)

⁸ When He said just before, You have neither desired, nor have You taken delight in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings—all of which are offered according to the Law—

⁹ He then went on to say, Behold, [here] I am, coming to do Your will. Thus He does away with and annuls the first (former) order [as a means of expiating sin] so that He might inaugurate and establish the second (latter) order.^(B)

¹⁰ And in accordance with this will [of God], we have been made holy (consecrated and sanctified) through the offering made once for all of the body of Jesus Christ (the Anointed One).

¹¹ Furthermore, every [human] priest stands [at his altar of service] ministering daily, offering the same sacrifices over and over again, which never are able to strip [from every side of us] the sins [that envelop us] and take them away—

¹² Whereas this One [Christ], after He had offered a single sacrifice for our sins [that shall avail] for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,

¹³ Then to wait until His enemies should be made a stool beneath His feet.^(C)

¹⁴ For by a single offering He has forever completely cleansed and perfected those who are consecrated and made holy.

¹⁵ And also the Holy Spirit adds His testimony to us [in confirmation of this]. For having said,

¹⁶ This is the agreement (testament, covenant) that I will set up and conclude with them after those days, says the Lord: I will imprint My laws upon their hearts, and I will inscribe them on their minds (on their inmost thoughts and understanding),

¹⁷ He then goes on to say, And their sins and their lawbreaking I will remember no more.^(D)

¹⁸ Now where there is absolute remission (forgiveness and cancellation of the penalty) of these [sins and lawbreaking], there is no longer any offering made to atone for sin.

¹⁹ Therefore, brethren, since we have full freedom and confidence to enter into the [Holy of] Holies [by the power and virtue] in the blood of Jesus,

²⁰ By this fresh (new) and living way which He initiated and dedicated and opened for us through the separating curtain (veil of the Holy of Holies), that is, through His flesh,

²¹ And since we have [such] a great and wonderful and noble Priest [Who rules] over the house of God,

²² Let us all come forward and draw near with true (honest and sincere) hearts in unqualified assurance and absolute conviction engendered by faith (by ^[b]that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness), having our hearts sprinkled and purified from a guilty (evil) conscience and our bodies cleansed with pure water.

²³ So let us seize and hold fast and retain without wavering the ^[c]hope we cherish and confess and our acknowledgement of it, for He Who promised is reliable (sure) and faithful to His word.

²⁴ And let us consider and give ^[d]attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities,

²⁵ Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together [as believers], as is the habit of some people, but admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching.

²⁶ For if we go on deliberately and willingly sinning after once acquiring the knowledge of the Truth, there is no longer any sacrifice left to atone for [our] sins [no further offering to which to look forward].

²⁷ [There is nothing left for us then] but a kind of awful and fearful prospect and expectation of divine judgment and the fury of burning wrath and indignation which will consume those who put themselves in opposition [to God].^(E)

²⁸ Any person who has violated and [thus] rejected and set at naught the Law of Moses is put to death without pity or mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.^(F)

²⁹ How much worse (sterner and heavier) punishment do you suppose he will be judged to deserve who has spurned and [thus] trampled underfoot the Son of God, and who has considered the covenant blood by which he was consecrated common and unhallowed, thus profaning it and insulting and outraging the [Holy] Spirit [Who imparts] grace (the unmerited favor and blessing of God)?^(G)

³⁰ For we know Him Who said, Vengeance is Mine [retribution and the meting out of full justice rest with Me]; I will repay [I will exact the compensation], says the Lord. And again, The Lord will judge and determine and solve and settle the cause and the cases of His people.^(H)

³¹ It is a fearful (formidable and terrible) thing to incur the divine penalties and be cast into the hands of the living God!

³² But be ever mindful of the days gone by in which, after you were first spiritually enlightened, you endured a great and painful struggle,

³³ Sometimes being yourselves a gazingstock, publicly exposed to insults and abuse and distress, and sometimes claiming fellowship and making common cause with others who were so treated.

³⁴ For you did sympathize and suffer along with those who were imprisoned, and you bore cheerfully the plundering of your belongings and the confiscation of your property, in the knowledge and consciousness that you yourselves had a better and lasting possession.

³⁵ Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward.

³⁶ For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and ^[e]carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised.

³⁷ For still a little while (a very little while), and the Coming One will come and He will not delay.

³⁸ But the just shall live by faith [My righteous servant shall live ^[f]by his conviction respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, and holy fervor born of faith and conjoined with it]; and if he draws back and shrinks in fear, My soul has no delight or pleasure in him.^(I)

³⁹ But our way is not that of those who draw back to eternal misery (perdition) and are utterly destroyed, but we are of those who believe [who cleave to and trust in and rely on God through Jesus Christ, the Messiah] and by faith preserve the soul.

Psalm 40

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ I waited patiently and expectantly for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry.

² He drew me up out of a horrible pit [a pit of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my goings.

³ And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in the Lord.^(A)

⁴ Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who makes the Lord his refuge and trust, and turns not to the proud or to followers of false gods.

⁵ Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.

⁶ Sacrifice and offering You do not desire, nor have You delight in them; You have given me the capacity to hear and obey [Your law, a more valuable service than] burnt offerings and sin offerings [which] You do not require.

⁷ Then said I, Behold, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me;

⁸ I delight to do Your will, O my God; yes, Your law is within my heart.^(B)

⁹ I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great assembly [tidings of uprightness and right standing with God]. Behold, I have not restrained my lips, as You know, O Lord.

¹⁰ I have not concealed Your righteousness within my heart; I have proclaimed Your faithfulness and Your salvation. I have not hid away Your steadfast love and Your truth from the great assembly.^(C)

¹¹ Withhold not Your tender mercy from me, O Lord; let Your loving-kindness and Your truth continually preserve me!

¹² For innumerable evils have compassed me about; my iniquities have taken such hold on me that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart has failed me and forsaken me.

¹³ Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me!

¹⁴ Let them be put to shame and confounded together who seek and require my life to destroy it; let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor who wish me evil and delight in my hurt!

¹⁵ Let them be desolate by reason of their shame who say to me, Aha, aha!

¹⁶ Let all those that seek and require You rejoice and be glad in You; let such as love Your salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified!

¹⁷ [As for me] I am poor and needy, yet the Lord takes thought and plans for me. You are my Help and my Deliverer. O my God, do not tarry!^(D)

31 At that time, says the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be My people.

² Thus says the Lord: The people who survived the sword found favor in the wilderness [place of exile]—when Israel sought to find rest.

³ The Lord appeared from of old to me [Israel], saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you and continued My faithfulness to you.^(A)

⁴ Again I will build you and you will be built, O Virgin Israel! You will again be adorned with your timbrels [small one-headed drums] and go forth in the dancing [chorus] of those who make merry.^(B)

⁵ Again you shall plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and make the fruit common and enjoy it [undisturbed].

⁶ For there shall be a day when the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim shall cry out, Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.

⁷ For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the head of the nations [on account of the chosen people, Israel]. Proclaim, praise, and say, The Lord has saved His people, the remnant of Israel!

⁸ Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, and among them will be the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who labors in childbirth together; a great company, they will return here to Jerusalem.

⁹ They will come with weeping [in penitence and for joy], pouring out prayers [for the future]. I will lead them back; I will cause them to walk by streams of water and bring them in a straight way in which they will not stumble, for I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim [Israel] is My firstborn.

¹⁰ Hear the word of the Lord, O you nations, and declare it in the isles and coastlands far away, and say, He Who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.

¹¹ For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from the hand of him who was too strong for him.

¹² They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion and shall flow together and be radiant with joy over the goodness of the Lord—for the corn, for the juice [of the grape], for the oil, and for the young of the flock and the herd. And their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow or languish any more at all.

¹³ Then will the maidens rejoice in the dance, and the young men and old together. For I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice after their sorrow.

¹⁴ I will satisfy fully the life of the priests with abundance [of offerings shared with them], and My people will be satisfied with My goodness, says the Lord.

¹⁵ Thus says the Lord: A ^[a]voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.^(C)

¹⁶ Thus says the Lord: Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord; and [your children] shall return from the enemy’s land.

¹⁷ And there is hope for your future, says the Lord; your children shall come back to their own country.

¹⁸ I have surely heard Ephraim [Israel] moaning thus: You have chastised me, and I was chastised, like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; bring me back, that I may be restored, for You are the Lord my God.

¹⁹ Surely after I [Ephraim] was turned [from You], I repented; and after I was instructed, I penitently smote my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the disgrace of my youth [as a nation].

²⁰ Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a darling child and beloved? For as often as I speak against him, I do [earnestly] remember him still. Therefore My affection is stirred and My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy, pity, and loving-kindness for him, says the Lord.

²¹ Set up for yourselves highway markers [back to Canaan], make for yourselves guideposts; turn your thoughts and attention to the way by which you went [into exile]. Retrace your steps, O Virgin Israel, return to these your cities.

²² How long will you waver and hesitate [to return], O you backsliding daughter? For the Lord has created a ^[b]new thing in the land [of Israel]: a female shall compass (woo, win, and protect) a man.

²³ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Once more they shall use these words in the land of Judah and in her cities when I release them from exile: The Lord bless you, O habitation of justice and righteousness, O holy mountain!

²⁴ And [the people of] Judah and all its cities shall dwell there together—[nomad] farmers and those who wander about with their flocks.

²⁵ For I will [fully] satisfy the weary soul, and I will replenish every languishing and sorrowful person.

²⁶ Thereupon I [Jeremiah] awoke and looked, and my [trancelike] sleep was sweet [in the assurance it gave] to me.

²⁷ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed (offspring) of man and of beast.

²⁸ And it will be that as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to overthrow, destroy, and afflict [with evil], so will I watch over them to build and to plant [with good], says the Lord.

²⁹ In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.^(D)

³⁰ But everyone shall die for his own iniquity [only]; every man who eats sour grapes—his [own] teeth shall be set on edge.

³¹ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,^(E)

³² Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was their Husband, says the Lord.

³³ But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, says the Lord, I will put My law within them, and on their hearts will I write it; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.

³⁴ And they will no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know Me [recognize, understand, and be acquainted with Me], from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will [seriously] remember their sin no more.^(F)

³⁵ Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day and the fixed order of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, Who stirs up the sea’s roaring billows or stills the waves when they roar—the Lord of hosts is His name:

³⁶ If these ordinances [of fixed order] depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the posterity of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me throughout the ages.

³⁷ Thus says the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.

³⁸ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the city [of Jerusalem] shall be built [again] for the Lord from the ^[c]Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.

³⁹ And the measuring line shall go out farther straight onward to the hill Gareb and shall then turn to Goah [exact location unknown].

⁴⁰ And the whole valley [Hinnom] of the dead bodies and [the hill] of the ashes [long dumped there from the temple sacrifices], and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord. It [the city] shall not be plucked up or overthrown any more to the end of the age.^(G)

32 Give ear, O heavens, and I [Moses] will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

² My message shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the light rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb.

³ For I will proclaim the name [and presence] of the Lord. Concede and ascribe greatness to our God.

⁴ He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness without breach or deviation, just and right is He.

⁵ They [Israel] have spoiled themselves. They are not sons to Him, and that is their blemish—a perverse and crooked generation!

⁶ Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not He your Father Who acquired you for His own, Who made and established you [as a nation]?

⁷ Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.

⁸ When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites.

⁹ For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob (Israel) is the lot of His inheritance.

¹⁰ He found him in a desert land, in the howling void of the wilderness; He kept circling around him, He scanned him [penetratingly], He kept him as the pupil of His eye.

¹¹ As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings and He took them, He bore them on His pinions.^(A)

¹² So the Lord alone led him; there was no foreign god with Him.

¹³ He made Israel ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the increase of the field; and He made him suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock,

¹⁴ Butter and curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you drank wine of the blood of the grape.

¹⁵ But Jeshurun (Israel) grew fat and kicked. You became fat, you grew thick, you were gorged and sleek! Then he forsook God Who made him and forsook and despised the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶ They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked Him to anger.

¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not to God—to gods whom they knew not, to new gods lately come up, whom your fathers never knew or feared.

¹⁸ Of the Rock Who bore you you were unmindful; you forgot the God Who travailed in your birth.

¹⁹ And the Lord saw it and He spurned and rejected them, out of indignation with His sons and His daughters.

²⁰ And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

²¹ They have moved Me to jealousy with what is not God; they have angered Me with their idols. So I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will anger them with a foolish nation.

²² For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

²³ And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend My arrows upon them.

²⁴ They shall be wasted with hunger and devoured with burning heat and poisonous pestilence; and the teeth of beasts will I send against them, with the poison of crawling things of the dust.

²⁵ From without the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers shall be terror, destroying both young man and virgin, the sucking child with the man of gray hairs.

²⁶ I said, I would scatter them afar and I would have made the remembrance of them to cease from among men,

²⁷ Had I not feared the provocation of the foe, lest their enemies misconstrue it and lest they should say, Our own hand has prevailed; all this was not the work of the Lord.

²⁸ For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.

²⁹ O that they were wise and would see through this [present triumph] to their ultimate fate!

³⁰ How could one have chased a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had delivered them up?

³¹ For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves judge this.

³² For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of [poisonous] gall, their clusters are bitter.

³³ Their wine is the [furious] venom of serpents, and the pitiless poison of vipers.

³⁴ Is not this laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries?

³⁵ Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, in the time when their foot shall slide; for the day of their disaster is at hand and their doom comes speedily.

³⁶ For the Lord will revoke sentence for His people and relent for His servants’ sake when He sees that their power is gone and none remains, whether bond or free.

³⁷ And He will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

³⁸ Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection!

³⁹ See now that I, I am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand.

⁴⁰ For I lift up My hand to heaven and swear, As I live forever,

⁴¹ If I whet My lightning sword and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will wreak vengeance on My foes and recompense those who hate Me.

⁴² I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired heads of the foe.

⁴³ Rejoice [with] His people, O you nations, for He avenges the blood of His servants, and vengeance He inflicts on His foes and clears guilt from the land of His people.

⁴⁴ And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea (Joshua) son of Nun.

⁴⁵ And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel,

⁴⁶ He said to them, Set your [minds and] hearts on all the words which I command you this day, that you may command them to your children, that they may be watchful to do all the words of this law.

⁴⁷ For it is not an empty and worthless trifle for you; it is your [very] life. By it you shall live long in the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess.

⁴⁸ And the Lord said to Moses that same day,

⁴⁹ Get up into this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and look at the land of Canaan which I give to the Israelites for a possession.

⁵⁰ And die on the mountain which you ascend and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,

⁵¹ Because you broke faith with Me in the midst of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin and because you did not set Me apart as holy in the midst of the Israelites.

⁵² For you shall see the land opposite you at a distance, but you shall not go there, into the land which I give the Israelites.

Psalm 135

¹ Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!) Praise the name of the Lord; praise Him, O you servants of the Lord!

² You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God,

³ Praise the Lord! For the Lord is good; sing praises to His name, for He is gracious and lovely!

⁴ For the Lord has chosen [the descendants of] Jacob for Himself, Israel for His peculiar possession and treasure.^(A)

⁵ For I know that the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods.

⁶ Whatever the Lord pleases, that has He done in the heavens and on earth, in the seas and all deeps—

⁷ Who causes the vapors to arise from the ends of the earth, Who makes lightnings for the rain, Who brings the wind out of His storehouses;

⁸ Who smote the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and beast;^(B)

⁹ Who sent signs and wonders into the midst of you, O Egypt, upon Pharaoh and all his servants;

¹⁰ Who smote nations many and great and slew mighty kings—

¹¹ Sihon king of the Amorites, Og king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan.

¹² [The Lord] gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to Israel His people.

¹³ Your name, O Lord, endures forever, Your fame, O Lord, throughout all ages.

¹⁴ For the Lord will judge and vindicate His people, and He will delay His judgments [manifesting His righteousness and mercy] and take into favor His servants [those who meet His terms of separation unto Him].^(C)

¹⁵ The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.

¹⁶ [Idols] have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not;

¹⁷ They have ears, but they hear not, nor is there any breath in their mouths.

¹⁸ Those who make [idols] are like them; so is everyone who trusts in and relies on them.^(D)

¹⁹ Bless (affectionately and gratefully praise) the Lord, O house of Israel; bless the Lord, O house of Aaron [God’s ministers].

²⁰ Bless the Lord, O house of Levi [the dedicated tribe]; you who reverently and worshipfully fear the Lord, bless the Lord [affectionately and gratefully praise Him]!^(E)

²¹ Blessed out of Zion be the Lord, Who dwells [with us] at Jerusalem! Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)

26 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: ^[a]We have a strong city; [the Lord] sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks.

² Open the gates, that the [uncompromisingly] righteous nation which keeps her faith and her troth [with God] may enter in.

³ You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.

⁴ So trust in the Lord (commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever; for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock [the Rock of Ages].

⁵ For He has brought down the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city; He lays it low, lays it low to the ground; He brings it even to the dust.

⁶ The foot has trampled it down—even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.

⁷ The way of the [consistently] righteous (those living in moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relationship of their lives) is level and straight; You, O [Lord], Who are upright, direct aright and make level the path of the [uncompromisingly] just and righteous.

⁸ Yes, in the path of Your judgments, O Lord, we wait [expectantly] for You; our heartfelt desire is for Your name and for the remembrance of You.

⁹ My soul yearns for You [O Lord] in the night, yes, my spirit within me seeks You earnestly; for [only] when Your judgments are in the earth will the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God).

¹⁰ Though favor is shown to the wicked, yet they do not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness they deal perversely and refuse to see the majesty of the Lord.

¹¹ Though Your hand is lifted high to strike, Lord, they do not see it. Let them see Your zeal for Your people and be ashamed; yes, let the fire reserved for Your enemies consume them.

¹² Lord, You will ordain peace (God’s favor and blessings, both temporal and spiritual) for us, for You have also wrought in us and for us all our works.

¹³ O Lord, our God, other masters besides You have ruled over us, but we will acknowledge and mention Your name only.

¹⁴ They [the former tyrant masters] are dead, they shall not live and reappear; they are powerless ghosts, they shall not rise and come back. Therefore You have visited and made an end of them and caused every memory of them [every trace of their supremacy] to perish.

¹⁵ You have increased the nation, O Lord; You have increased the nation. You are glorified; You have enlarged all the borders of the land.

¹⁶ Lord, when they were in trouble and distress, they sought and visited You; they poured out a prayerful whisper when Your chastening was upon them.

¹⁷ As a woman with child drawing near the time of her delivery is in pain and writhes and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before You (at Your presence), O Lord.

¹⁸ We have been with child, we have been writhing and in pain; we have, as it were, brought forth [only] wind. We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world [of Israel] have not yet been born.

¹⁹ Your dead shall live [O Lord]; the bodies of our dead [saints] shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For Your dew [O Lord] is a dew of [sparkling] light [heavenly, supernatural dew]; and the earth shall cast forth the dead [to life again; for on the land of the shades of the dead You will let Your dew fall].^(A)

²⁰ Come, my people, enter your chambers and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the [Lord’s] wrath is past.

²¹ For behold, the Lord is coming out of His place [heaven] to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also will disclose the blood shed upon her and will no longer cover her slain and conceal her guilt.

2 [Oh, I know, I have been rash to talk out plainly this way to God!] I will [in my thinking] stand upon my post of observation and station myself on the tower or fortress, and will watch to see what He will say within me and what answer I will make [as His mouthpiece] to the perplexities of my complaint against Him.

² And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and engrave it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may [be able to] read [it easily and quickly] as he hastens by.

³ For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end [fulfillment]; it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait [earnestly] for it, because it will surely come; it will not be behindhand on its appointed day.^(A)

⁴ Look at the proud; his soul is not straight or right within him, but the [rigidly] just and the [uncompromisingly] righteous man shall ^[a]live by his faith and in his faithfulness.^(B)

⁵ Moreover, wine and ^[b]wealth are treacherous; the proud man [the Chaldean invader] is restless and cannot stay at home. His appetite is large like that of Sheol and [his greed] is like death and cannot be satisfied; he gathers to himself all nations and collects all people as if he owned them.

⁶ Shall not all these [victims of his greed] take up a taunt against him and in scoffing derision of him say, Woe to him who piles up that which is not his! [How long will he possess it?] And [woe to him] who loads himself with promissory notes for usury!

⁷ Shall [your debtors] not rise up suddenly who shall bite you, exacting usury of you, and those awake who will vex you [toss you to and fro and make you tremble violently]? Then you will be booty for them.

⁸ Because you [king of Babylon] have plundered many nations, all who are left of the people shall plunder you—because of men’s blood and for the violence done to the earth, to the city and all the people who live in each city.

⁹ Woe to him who obtains wicked gain for his house, [who thinks by so doing] to set his nest on high that he may be preserved from calamity and delivered from the power of evil!

¹⁰ You have devised shame to your house by cutting off and putting an end to many peoples, and you have sinned against and forfeited your own life.

¹¹ For the stone shall cry out of the wall [built in sin, to accuse you], and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it [agreeing with its charge against you].

¹² Woe to him who builds a town with blood and establishes a city by iniquity!

¹³ Behold, is it not by appointment of the Lord of hosts that the nations toil only to satisfy the fire [that will consume their work], and the peoples weary themselves only for emptiness, falsity, and futility?

¹⁴ But [the time is coming when] the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.^(C)

¹⁵ Woe to him who gives his neighbors drink, who pours out your bottle to them and adds to it your poisonous and blighting wrath and also makes them drunk, that you may look on their stripped condition and pour out foul shame [on their glory]!

¹⁶ You [yourself] will be filled with shame and contempt instead of glory. Drink also and be like an uncircumcised [heathen]! The cup [of wrath] in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you [O destroyer], and foul shame shall be upon your own glory!^(D)

¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will cover and overwhelm you; the destruction of the animals [which the violence frightened away] will terrify you on account of men’s blood and the violence done to the land, to the city and all its inhabitants.

¹⁸ What profit is the graven image when its maker has formed it? It is only a molten image and a teacher of lies. For the maker trusts in his own creations [as his gods] when he makes dumb idols.

¹⁹ Woe to him who says to the wooden image, Awake! and to the dumb stone, Arise, teach! [Yet, it cannot, for] behold, it is laid over with gold and silver and there is no breath at all inside it!

²⁰ But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth hush and keep silence before Him.^(E)

10 For since the Law has merely a rude outline (foreshadowing) of the good things to come—instead of fully expressing those things—it can never by offering the same sacrifices continually year after year make perfect those who approach [its altars].

² For if it were otherwise, would [these sacrifices] not have stopped being offered? Since the worshipers had ^[a]once for all been cleansed, they would no longer have any guilt or consciousness of sin.

³ But [as it is] these sacrifices annually bring a fresh remembrance of sins [to be atoned for],

⁴ Because the blood of bulls and goats is powerless to take sins away.

⁵ Hence, when He [Christ] entered into the world, He said, Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired, but instead You have made ready a body for Me [to offer];

⁶ In burnt offerings and sin offerings You have taken no delight.

⁷ Then I said, Behold, here I am, coming to do Your will, O God—[to fulfill] what is written of Me in the volume of the Book.^(A)

⁸ When He said just before, You have neither desired, nor have You taken delight in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings—all of which are offered according to the Law—

⁹ He then went on to say, Behold, [here] I am, coming to do Your will. Thus He does away with and annuls the first (former) order [as a means of expiating sin] so that He might inaugurate and establish the second (latter) order.^(B)

¹⁰ And in accordance with this will [of God], we have been made holy (consecrated and sanctified) through the offering made once for all of the body of Jesus Christ (the Anointed One).

¹¹ Furthermore, every [human] priest stands [at his altar of service] ministering daily, offering the same sacrifices over and over again, which never are able to strip [from every side of us] the sins [that envelop us] and take them away—

¹² Whereas this One [Christ], after He had offered a single sacrifice for our sins [that shall avail] for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,

¹³ Then to wait until His enemies should be made a stool beneath His feet.^(C)

¹⁴ For by a single offering He has forever completely cleansed and perfected those who are consecrated and made holy.

¹⁵ And also the Holy Spirit adds His testimony to us [in confirmation of this]. For having said,

¹⁶ This is the agreement (testament, covenant) that I will set up and conclude with them after those days, says the Lord: I will imprint My laws upon their hearts, and I will inscribe them on their minds (on their inmost thoughts and understanding),

¹⁷ He then goes on to say, And their sins and their lawbreaking I will remember no more.^(D)

¹⁸ Now where there is absolute remission (forgiveness and cancellation of the penalty) of these [sins and lawbreaking], there is no longer any offering made to atone for sin.

¹⁹ Therefore, brethren, since we have full freedom and confidence to enter into the [Holy of] Holies [by the power and virtue] in the blood of Jesus,

²⁰ By this fresh (new) and living way which He initiated and dedicated and opened for us through the separating curtain (veil of the Holy of Holies), that is, through His flesh,

²¹ And since we have [such] a great and wonderful and noble Priest [Who rules] over the house of God,

²² Let us all come forward and draw near with true (honest and sincere) hearts in unqualified assurance and absolute conviction engendered by faith (by ^[b]that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness), having our hearts sprinkled and purified from a guilty (evil) conscience and our bodies cleansed with pure water.

²³ So let us seize and hold fast and retain without wavering the ^[c]hope we cherish and confess and our acknowledgement of it, for He Who promised is reliable (sure) and faithful to His word.

²⁴ And let us consider and give ^[d]attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities,

²⁵ Not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together [as believers], as is the habit of some people, but admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching.

²⁶ For if we go on deliberately and willingly sinning after once acquiring the knowledge of the Truth, there is no longer any sacrifice left to atone for [our] sins [no further offering to which to look forward].

²⁷ [There is nothing left for us then] but a kind of awful and fearful prospect and expectation of divine judgment and the fury of burning wrath and indignation which will consume those who put themselves in opposition [to God].^(E)

²⁸ Any person who has violated and [thus] rejected and set at naught the Law of Moses is put to death without pity or mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.^(F)

²⁹ How much worse (sterner and heavier) punishment do you suppose he will be judged to deserve who has spurned and [thus] trampled underfoot the Son of God, and who has considered the covenant blood by which he was consecrated common and unhallowed, thus profaning it and insulting and outraging the [Holy] Spirit [Who imparts] grace (the unmerited favor and blessing of God)?^(G)

³⁰ For we know Him Who said, Vengeance is Mine [retribution and the meting out of full justice rest with Me]; I will repay [I will exact the compensation], says the Lord. And again, The Lord will judge and determine and solve and settle the cause and the cases of His people.^(H)

³¹ It is a fearful (formidable and terrible) thing to incur the divine penalties and be cast into the hands of the living God!

³² But be ever mindful of the days gone by in which, after you were first spiritually enlightened, you endured a great and painful struggle,

³³ Sometimes being yourselves a gazingstock, publicly exposed to insults and abuse and distress, and sometimes claiming fellowship and making common cause with others who were so treated.

³⁴ For you did sympathize and suffer along with those who were imprisoned, and you bore cheerfully the plundering of your belongings and the confiscation of your property, in the knowledge and consciousness that you yourselves had a better and lasting possession.

³⁵ Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward.

³⁶ For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and ^[e]carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised.

³⁷ For still a little while (a very little while), and the Coming One will come and He will not delay.

³⁸ But the just shall live by faith [My righteous servant shall live ^[f]by his conviction respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, and holy fervor born of faith and conjoined with it]; and if he draws back and shrinks in fear, My soul has no delight or pleasure in him.^(I)

³⁹ But our way is not that of those who draw back to eternal misery (perdition) and are utterly destroyed, but we are of those who believe [who cleave to and trust in and rely on God through Jesus Christ, the Messiah] and by faith preserve the soul.