Hê-bơ-rơ 9

Worship in the earthly tabernacle

¹The first covenant, then, had its own regulations for worship, and a sanctuary belonging to this world. ²A first tabernacle was set up, which held the lampstand, and the table with the loaves set out on it. This one is called the Holy Place. ³Beyond the second curtain stood a tabernacle called the Most Holy Place. ⁴To it belonged the golden altar of incense, and in it was the ark of the covenant, overlaid with gold on every side. The ark held a golden jar containing the manna, the staff of Aaron that sprouted, and the tablets of the covenant. ⁵Over the ark the cherubim of glory spread their shadow across the mercy seat. Of these things there is no time now to speak one by one.^a

⁶With these things arranged in this way, the priests go regularly into the first tabernacle as they carry out their duties of worship. ⁷But into the second the high priest goes alone, once a year, and he must bring blood, which he offers for his own sins and for those the people committed without knowing it. ⁸By this the Holy Spirit makes it clear that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been opened as long as the first tabernacle still has its place. ⁹This is a figure for the present time. Under this arrangement gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience. ¹⁰They have to do only with what is eaten and drunk and with various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things right.^{bc 11}But Christ came as high priest of the good things that have now come. Through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, one not made by hands and not belonging to this creation, ¹²and by means not of the blood of goats and calves but of his own blood, he entered the sanctuary once for all and obtained an eternal redemption.^{d 13}For if the blood of goats and bulls, and a heifer’s ashes sprinkled on people who have become defiled, make them holy so that they are clean in body, ¹⁴how much more will the blood of Christ wash our conscience clean of dead works, so that we may worship the living God! Through the eternal Spirit he offered himself to God, a sacrifice without flaw.^e

¹⁵This is why he mediates a new covenant: a death has taken place to set people free from the offenses committed under the first covenant, and so those who are called may receive what was promised, the eternal inheritance. ¹⁶A will, after all, requires proof that the one who made it has died.^{f 17}For it is when someone has died that a will becomes binding; it has no force at all as long as its maker is alive.^{g 18}This is why not even the first covenant was dedicated apart from blood. ¹⁹Moses first spoke every command of the law to all the people. Then he took the calves’ blood together with water, scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled the book itself and the whole people, ²⁰and said, “This is the blood of the covenant God has laid down for you.”^{h 21}Likewise he sprinkled blood on the tabernacle as well, and on all the vessels used in its worship. ²²The law, in fact, has almost everything made clean with blood, and where no blood is shed there is no forgiveness.

Into heaven itself

²³The copies of what is in heaven, then, had to be cleansed in these ways; but the heavenly realities themselves required sacrifices better than these. ²⁴For it was not into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the real one, that Christ went. He went into heaven itself, and there he now appears before the face of God on our behalf. ²⁵And he did not enter to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest goes into the sanctuary each year with blood that belongs to another. ²⁶If that were so, he would have needed to suffer many times over, ever since the world was founded. Instead, he has now been revealed once, when the ages reach their completion, to set sin aside through his sacrifice. ²⁷And as it is in store for human beings to die once and after that to be judged, ²⁸so Christ too was offered once to carry the sins of many, and he will appear a second time, apart from sin, to those who eagerly await him for their salvation.