Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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.