Hebrews 10

1For the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, not the true form of those realities. It can never, by the same sacrifices offered endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near.

2Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers, once cleansed, would no longer have been conscious of sins.

3Instead, in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year.

4For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

5That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but you prepared a body for me;

6in burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no pleasure.

7Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come, as it is written about me in the scroll of the book, to do your will, O God.’”

8First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings, you did not desire, nor did you take pleasure in them,” though they are offered according to the law.

9Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second.

10And by that will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11Every priest stands day after day performing his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

13and since then he has been waiting for his enemies to be made a footstool for his feet.

14For by one offering he has made perfect for all time those who are being made holy.

15The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after saying,

16“This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and I will write them on their minds,”

17he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

18And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any offering for sin.

19Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,

20by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,

21and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

22let us draw near with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

23Let us hold unwaveringly to the hope we confess, for he who promised is faithful.

24And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good works,

25not neglecting to meet together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

26For if we go on sinning deliberately after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

27but only a terrifying expectation of judgment and of a raging fire that will consume the adversaries.

28Anyone who rejects the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

29How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, who has treated as unholy the blood of the covenant by which he was made holy, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

30For we know the one who said, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

31It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

32But remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.

33Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insults and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were treated that way.

34For you shared the sufferings of those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the seizure of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had a better possession, one that lasts.

35So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

36For you need endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.

37For, “In just a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay.

38But my righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks back, I take no pleasure in him.”

39But we are not among those who shrink back and are destroyed, but among those who have faith and so preserve their souls.