Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁷ Remember your leaders, who spoke God’s word to you. Look carefully at how their lives reached their goal, and imitate their faith. ⁸ Jesus the Messiah is the same, yesterday, today and forever.

Outside the old city, seeking the new

⁹ Don’t let yourselves be carried off by strange teachings of whatever sort. The heart needs to be strengthened by grace, you see, not by rules about what to eat, which don’t do any good to those who observe them.

¹⁰ We have an altar from which those who minister in the Tabernacle are not allowed to eat. ¹¹ For the bodies of the animals whose blood is taken into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sin-offering are burned outside the camp. ¹² That’s why Jesus too suffered outside the gate, so that he might make the people holy with his own blood. ¹³ So, then, let’s go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his shame. ¹⁴ Here, you see, we have no city that lasts; we are looking for the one that is still to come.

¹⁵ Our part, then, is this: to bring, through him, a continual sacrifice of praise to God—that is, lips that confess his name, and do so fruitfully. ¹⁶ Don’t neglect to do good, and to let “fellowship” mean what it says. God really enjoys sacrifices of that kind!

The God of peace be with you

¹⁷ Obey your leaders; submit to them. They are keeping watch over your lives, you see, as people who will have to give account. Make sure they can do this with joy, not with a groan. That would be of no value to you.