Book of Common Prayer
The stopping of the sacrifices
10 The law, you see, possesses a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the actual form of the things themselves. Thus it is unable to make worshipers perfect through the annual round in which the same sacrifices are continually being offered. 2 If the worshipers really had been purified once and for all, they would no longer have sin on their consciences—so they would have stopped offering sacrifices, wouldn’t they? 3 But, as it is, the sacrifices serve as a regular annual reminder of sins, 4 since it’s impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take sins away.
5 That’s why, when the Messiah comes into the world, this is what he says:
You didn’t want sacrifices and offerings;
instead, you’ve given me a body.
6 You didn’t like burnt offerings and sin-offerings;
7 then I said, “Look! Here I am!
This is what it says about me in the scroll, the book:
I’ve come, O God, to do your will.”
8 When he says, earlier, “you didn’t want, and you didn’t like, sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings and sin-offerings” (all of which are offered in accordance with the law), 9 then he says, “Look! I’ve come to do your will!” He takes away the first so that he can establish the second. 10 And it’s by that “will” that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus the Messiah, once for all.
The evidence in support of Jesus
30 “I can’t do anything on my own authority,” Jesus went on. “I judge on the basis of what I hear. And my judgment is just, because I’m not trying to carry out my own wishes, but the wishes of the one who sent me.
31 “If I give evidence about myself, my evidence isn’t true. 32 There is someone else who gives evidence about me, and I know that the evidence he brings about me is true. 33 You sent messengers to John, and he gave evidence about the truth. 34 Not that I need evidence from human beings; but I’m saying this so that you may be saved.
35 “John was a burning, bright lamp, and you were happy to celebrate in his light for a while. 36 But I have greater evidence on my side than that of John. The works which the father has given me to complete—these works, which I’m doing, will provide evidence about me, evidence that the father has sent me. 37 And the father who sent me has given evidence about me. You’ve never heard his voice; you’ve never seen his form. 38 What’s more, you haven’t got his word abiding in you, because you don’t believe in the one he sent.”
Jesus and Moses
39 “You study the Bible,” Jesus continued, “because you suppose that you’ll discover the life of God’s coming age in it. In fact, it’s the Bible which gives evidence about me! 40 But you won’t come to me so that you can have life.
41 “I’m not accepting glory from human beings; 42 but I know that you haven’t got the love of God within you. 43 I have come in the name of my father, and you won’t receive me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will receive him! 44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you’re not looking for the glory which comes from the one and only God?
45 “Don’t think that I’m going to accuse you to the father. There is someone who accuses you, namely Moses, the one you look to in hope! 46 You see, if you’d believed Moses, you would have believed me—because it was me he was writing about. 47 But if you don’t believe his writings, how are you going to believe my words?”
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.