¹⁶ who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.

¹⁸ and the living one. ^(A)I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and ^(B)I have the keys of Death and Hades.

Christ's Sacrifice Once for All

10 For since the law has but ^(A)a shadow ^(B)of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, ^(C)it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

²⁸ For the law appoints men ^(A)in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made ^(B)perfect forever.

³ He is without father or mother ^(A)or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.

²⁰ If with Christ ^(A)you died to the ^(B)elemental spirits of the world, ^(C)why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—

¹⁴ by ^(A)canceling ^(B)the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

⁹ But now that you have come to know God, or rather ^(A)to be known by God, ^(B)how can you turn back again to ^(C)the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

³ In the same way we also, when we were children, ^(A)were enslaved to the elementary principles^[a] of the world.

²⁴ but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues ^(A)forever. ²⁵ Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost^{[a] (B)}those who draw near to God ^(C)through him, since he always lives ^(D)to make intercession for them.