Study Desk

We do not want you to become lazy, but to be like those who believe and are patient, and so receive what God has promised.

Abraham was patient, and so he received what God had promised.

To those who were to receive what he promised, God wanted to make it very clear that he would never change his purpose; so he added his vow to the promise.

There are these two things, then, that cannot change and about which God cannot lie. So we who have found safety with him are greatly encouraged to hold firmly to the hope placed before us.

And, so to speak, when Abraham paid the tenth, Levi (whose descendants collect the tenth) also paid it.

For Levi had not yet been born, but was, so to speak, in the body of his ancestor Abraham when Melchizedek met him.

And so he is able, now and always, to save those who come to God through him, because he lives forever to plead with God for them.

Every high priest is appointed to present offerings and animal sacrifices to God, and so our High Priest must also have something to offer.

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They were not faithful to the covenant I made with them, and so I paid no attention to them.

but only the high priest goes into the inner tent, and he does so only once a year. He takes with him blood which he offers to God on behalf of himself and for the sins which the people have committed without knowing they were sinning.

Since this is true, how much more is accomplished by the blood of Christ! Through the eternal Spirit he offered himself as a perfect sacrifice to God. His blood will purify our consciences from useless rituals, so that we may serve the living God.

For this reason Christ is the one who arranges a new covenant, so that those who have been called by God may receive the eternal blessings that God has promised. This can be done because there has been a death which sets people free from the wrongs they did while the first covenant was in effect.

Then he said, "Here I am, O God, to do your will." So God does away with all the old sacrifices and puts the sacrifice of Christ in their place.

So when these have been forgiven, an offering to take away sins is no longer needed.

So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water.

It is by faith that we understand that the universe was created by God's word, so that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen.

Instead, it was a better country they longed for, the heavenly country. And so God is not ashamed for them to call him their God, because he has prepared a city for them.

Abraham reckoned that God was able to raise Isaac from death—and, so to speak, Abraham did receive Isaac back from death.

It was faith that made him establish the Passover and order the blood to be sprinkled on the doors, so that the Angel of Death would not kill the first-born sons of the Israelites.

As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us.