Study Desk

but if it keeps producing thorns and thistles , it fails the test and is close to being cursed ; in the end, it will be burned.

so that you will not become sluggish, but will be imitators of those who by their trust and patience are receiving what has been promised.

But Malki-Tzedek, even though he was not descended from Levi, took a tenth from Avraham. Also, he blessed Avraham, the man who received God's promises;

one who became a cohen not by virtue of a rule in the Torah concerning physical descent, but by virtue of the power of an indestructible life.

but Yeshua became a cohen by the oath which God swore when he said to him, " Adonai has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a cohen forever.'"

But because he lives forever, his position as cohen does not pass on to someone else;

For the Torah appoints as cohanim g'dolim men who have weakness; but the text which speaks about the swearing of the oath, a text written later than the Torah, appoints a Son who has been brought to the goal forever.

There he serves in the Holy Place, that is, in the true Tent of Meeting, the one erected not by human beings but by Adonai .

But what they are serving is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly original; for when Moshe was about to erect the Tent, God warned him, "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern you were shown on the mountain."

But now the work Yeshua has been given to do is far superior to theirs, just as the covenant he mediates is better. For this covenant has been given as Torah on the basis of better promises.

and above it were the k'ruvim representing the Sh'khinah, casting their shadow on the lid of the Ark — but now is not the time to discuss these things in detail.

but only the cohen hagadol enters the inner one; and he goes in only once a year, and he must always bring blood, which he offers both for himself and for the sins committed in ignorance by the people.

But when the Messiah appeared as cohen gadol of the good things that are happening already, then, through the greater and more perfect Tent which is not man-made (that is, it is not of this created world),

he entered the Holiest Place once and for all. And he entered not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus setting people free forever.

Now this is how the copies of the heavenly things had to be purified, but the heavenly things themselves require better sacrifices than these.

For the Messiah has entered a Holiest Place which is not man-made and merely a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, in order to appear now on our behalf in the very presence of God.

for then he would have had to suffer death many times — from the founding of the universe on. But as it is, he has appeared once at the end of the ages in order to do away with sin through the sacrifice of himself.

Just as human beings have to die once, but after this comes judgment,

so also the Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many , will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to deliver those who are eagerly waiting for him.

For the Torah has in it a shadow of the good things to come, but not the actual manifestation of the originals. Therefore, it can never, by means of the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, bring to the goal those who approach the Holy Place to offer them.