Hebrews 9

¹ The first covenant also had its laws governing worship and its sanctuary, a sanctuary on this earth.

² There was a tent which comprised two compartments: the first, in which the lamp-stand, the table andthe loaves of permanent offering were kept, was cal ed the Holy Place;

³ then beyond the second veil, a second compartment which was called the Holy of Holies

⁴ to which belonged the gold altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant, plated al over with gold. Inthis were kept the gold jar containing the manna, Aaron's branch that grew the buds, and the tables of thecovenant.

⁵ On top of it were the glorious winged creatures, overshadowing the throne of mercy. This is not the timeto go into detail about this.

⁶ Under these provisions, priests go regularly into the outer tent to carry out their acts of worship,

⁷ but the second tent is entered only once a year, and then only by the high priest who takes in the bloodto make an offering for his own and the people's faults of inadvertence.

⁸ By this, the Holy Spirit means us to see that as long as the old tent stands, the way into the holy placeis not opened up;

⁹ it is a symbol for this present time. None of the gifts and sacrifices offered under these regulations canpossibly bring any worshipper to perfection in his conscience;

¹⁰ they are rules about outward life, connected with food and drink and washing at various times, whichare in force only until the time comes to set things right.

¹¹ But now Christ has come, as the high priest of al the blessings which were to come. He has passedthrough the greater, the more perfect tent, not made by human hands, that is, not of this created order;

¹² and he has entered the sanctuary once and for all, taking with him not the blood of goats and bulcalves, but his own blood, having won an eternal redemption.

¹³ The blood of goats and bul s and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on those who have incurreddefilement, may restore their bodily purity.

¹⁴ How much more wil the blood of Christ, who offered himself, blameless as he was, to God throughthe eternal Spirit, purify our conscience from dead actions so that we can worship the living God.

¹⁵ This makes him the mediator of a new covenant, so that, now that a death has occurred to redeem thesins committed under an earlier covenant, those who have been cal ed to an eternal inheritance may receive thepromise.

¹⁶ Now wherever a wil is in question, the death of the testator must be established;

¹⁷ a testament comes into effect only after a death, since it has no force while the testator is stil alive.

¹⁸ That is why even the earlier covenant was inaugurated with blood,

¹⁹ and why, after Moses had promulgated al the commandments of the Law to the people, he took thecalves' blood, the goats' blood and some water, and with these he sprinkled the book itself and all the people,using scarlet wool and hyssop;

²⁰ saying as he did so: This is the blood of the covenant that God has made with you.

²¹ And he sprinkled both the tent and all the liturgical vessels with blood in the same way.

²² In fact, according to the Law, practical y every purification takes place by means of blood; and if thereis no shedding of blood, there is no remission.

²³ Only the copies of heavenly things are purified in this way; the heavenly things themselves have to bepurified by a higher sort of sacrifice than this.

²⁴ It is not as though Christ had entered a man-made sanctuary which was merely a model of the realone; he entered heaven itself, so that he now appears in the presence of God on our behalf.

²⁵ And he does not have to offer himself again and again, as the high priest goes into the sanctuary yearafter year with the blood that is not his own,

²⁶ or else he would have had to suffer over and over again since the world began. As it is, he has madehis appearance once and for al , at the end of the last age, to do away with sin by sacrificing himself.

²⁷ Since human beings die only once, after which comes judgement,

²⁸ so Christ too, having offered himself only once to bear the sin of many, will manifest himself a secondtime, sin being no more, to those who are waiting for him, to bring them salvation.