¹⁵ For this reason He is the Mediator and Negotiator of a new covenant [that is, an entirely new agreement uniting God and man], so that those who have been called [by God] may receive [the fulfillment of] the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has taken place [as the payment] which redeems them from the sins committed under the obsolete first covenant. ¹⁶ For where there is a will and ^[a]testament involved, the death of the one who made it must be established, ¹⁷ for a will and testament takes effect [only] at death, since it is never in force as long as the one who made it is alive. ¹⁸ So even the first covenant was not put in force without [the shedding of] blood. ¹⁹ For when every commandment in the Law had been read by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of the calves and goats [which had been sacrificed], together with water and scarlet wool and with a bunch of hyssop, and he sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the people, ²⁰ saying, “This is the blood of the covenant [that seals and ratifies the agreement] which God ordained and commanded [me to deliver to] you.”^{(A) 21} And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the containers and sacred utensils of worship with the blood. ²² In fact under the Law almost everything is cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness [neither release from sin and its guilt, nor cancellation of the merited punishment].