Book of Common Prayer

The old Tabernacle points forward to the new

9 The first Tabernacle had, of course, its own regulations for worship, and it contained the earthly sanctuary. ² A double tent was constructed. In the outer one was the lampstand, the table and the “bread of the presence.” This is called “the holy place.” ³ After the second curtain came the inner tent, called “the holy of holies.” ⁴ This contained the golden altar, and the ark of the covenant, which was covered completely in gold. In the ark were the golden urn containing the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded and the tablets of the covenant. ⁵ Above it were the glorious cherubim, which overshadowed the mercy seat. There is much we could say about all this, but now is not the time.

⁶ With all these things in place, the priests continually go into the first Tabernacle in the ordinary course of their duties. ⁷ But only the high priest goes into the second Tabernacle, once every year, and he always takes blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. ⁸ The holy spirit indicates by this that, as long as the original Tabernacle is still standing, the way is not yet open into the sanctuary.

⁹ This is a picture, so to speak, of the present age. During this period, gifts and sacrifices are offered which have no power to perfect the conscience of those who come to worship. ¹⁰ They only deal with foods and drinks and various kinds of washings. These are regulations for the ordering of bodily life until the appointed time, the moment when everything will be put into proper order.

The sacrifice of the Messiah

¹¹ But when the Messiah arrived as high priest of the good things that were coming, he entered through the greater and much superior Tabernacle, not made with hands (that is, not of the present creation), ¹² and not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood. He entered, once and for all, into the holy place, accomplishing a redemption that lasts forever.

¹³ If the blood of bulls and goats, you see, and the sprinkled ashes of a heifer, make people holy (in the sense of purifying their bodies) when they had been unclean, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who offered himself to God through the eternal spirit as a spotless sacrifice, cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God!

The healing of the disabled man

5 After this there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

² In Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool which is called, in Hebrew, Bethesda. It has five porticoes, ³ where several sick people were lying. They were blind, lame and paralyzed.

⁵ There was a man who had been there, in the same sick state, for thirty-eight years. ⁶ Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been there a long time already.

“Do you want to get well?” he asked him.

⁷ “Well, sir,” the sick man replied, “I don’t have anyone to put me into the pool when the water gets stirred up. While I’m on my way there, someone else gets down before me.”

⁸ “Get up,” said Jesus, “pick up your mattress and walk!”

⁹ At once the man was healed. He picked up his mattress and walked.

God’s son breaks the sabbath!

The day all this happened was a sabbath. ¹⁰ So the Judaeans confronted the man who had been healed.

“It’s the sabbath!” they said. “You shouldn’t be carrying your mattress!”

¹¹ “Well,” he replied, “the man who cured me told me to pick up my mattress and walk!”

¹² “Oh, really?” they said. “And who is this man, who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³ But the man who’d been healed didn’t know who it was. Jesus had gone away, and the place was crowded.

¹⁴ After this Jesus found the man in the Temple.

“Look!” he said. “You’re better again! Don’t sin anymore, or something worse might happen to you!”

¹⁵ The man went off and told the Judaeans that it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶ That was why the Judaeans began to persecute Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath.

¹⁷ This was Jesus’ response to them.

“My father,” he said, “is going on working, and so am I!”

¹⁸ So for this reason the Judaeans were all the more eager to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath, but spoke of God as his own father, making himself equal to God.