New Testament in a Year
Animal Sacrifices Are Not Sufficient
10 In fact, the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the actual realization of those things. It will never be able to make perfect those who continually offer the same sacrifices year after year. 2 If it could do this, would they not have stopped bringing sacrifices, because the worshippers, once they were cleansed, would no longer have a bad conscience about sins? 3 Instead, these sacrifices reminded them of their sins year after year. 4 The fact is that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins.
5 Therefore when he entered the world, Christ said:
Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but you prepared a body for me.
6 You were not pleased
with burnt offerings and sin offerings.
7 Then I said, “Here I am.
I have come to do your will, God.
In the scroll of the book it is written about me.”[a]
8 First he said:
Sacrifices and offerings that were offered according to the law,
both burnt offerings and sin offerings,
you did not desire,
and you were not pleased with them.[b]
9 Then he said:
Here I am.
I have come to do your will.[c]
He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified once and for all, through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ.
Christ’s Sacrifice Is Sufficient
11 In the one case, every priest stood ministering day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which are never able to remove sin. 12 In the other case, this priest, after he offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. 13 Since then he has been waiting until his enemies are made a footstool under his feet. 14 By only one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being sanctified.
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies in Scripture[d] to us, for first he said:
16 This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord.
I will put my laws on their hearts
and I will write them on their mind.[e]
17 Then he adds:
And I will not remember their sins and their lawlessness any longer.[f]
18 Now where these sins are forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.