God’s Final Word: His Son

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,

But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him?

In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness?

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

And no one takes this honor on himself, but he receives it when called by God, just as Aaron was.

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

The Certainty of God’s Promise

When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself,

saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.”

This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.

In the one case, the tenth is collected by people who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living.

One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham,

Jesus Like Melchizedek

If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron?

He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar.

one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.

Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office;

Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

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.

But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.

No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.