Another Priest, Like Melchizedek

¹¹ Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood—for the people received the law under this priesthood—what further need would there have been to speak of another priest arising according to the order of Melchizedek rather than one according to the order of Aaron?^(A)

⁷ For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one.^(A)

²¹ I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness^[a] comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

¹⁷ For it is attested of him,

¹⁸ There is, on the one hand, the abrogation of an earlier commandment because it was weak and ineffectual^{(B) 19} (for the law made nothing perfect); there is, on the other hand, the introduction of a better hope through which we approach God.^(C)

²¹ but this one became a priest with an oath because of the one who said to him,

¹⁵ It is even more obvious when another priest arises, resembling Melchizedek,

⁶ as he says also in another place,

⁹ Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental principles?^[a] How can you want to be enslaved to them again?^(A)

¹³ In speaking of a new covenant, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.^(D)