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Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer.
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They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
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When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry.
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How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
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This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood.
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When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people.
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In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies.
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In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
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Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.
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Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
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Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering.
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By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
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By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
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And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.
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even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”
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Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
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Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.
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Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
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Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
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And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
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because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
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If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.
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Warning and Encouragement
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
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Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.
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because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.”
