Study Desk

Inasmuch, then, as we have in Jesus, the Son of God, a great High Priest who has passed into Heaven itself, let us hold firmly to our profession of faith.

For every High Priest is chosen from among men, and is appointed to act on behalf of men in matters relating to God, in order to offer both gifts and sin-offerings,

And no one takes this honourable office upon himself, but only accepts it when called to it by God, as Aaron was.

For God Himself addresses Him as a High Priest for ever, belonging to the order of Melchizedek.

For although, considering the long time you have been believers, you ought now to be teachers of others, you really need some one to teach you over again the very rudiments of the truths of God, and you have come to require milk instead of solid food.

Therefore leaving elementary instruction about the Christ, let us advance to mature manhood and not be continually re-laying a foundation of repentance from lifeless works and of faith in God,

And advance we will, if God permits us to do so.

and have realized how good the word of God is and how mighty are the powers of the coming Age, and then fell away--

it is impossible, I say, to keep bringing them back to a new repentance, for, to their own undoing, they are repeatedly crucifying the Son of God afresh and exposing Him to open shame.

For God is not unjust so that He is unmindful of your labour and of the love which you have manifested towards Himself in having rendered services to His people and in still rendering them.

For when God gave the promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself,

And so, as the result of patient waiting, our forefather obtained what God had promised.

For this man, Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of the Most High God--he who when Abraham was returning after defeating the kings met him and pronounced a blessing on him--

with no father or mother, and no record of ancestry: having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made a type of the Son of God--this man Melchizedek remains a priest for ever.

for the Law brought no perfect blessing--but on the other hand we have the bringing in of a new and better hope by means of which we draw near to God.

Hence too He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, seeing that He ever lives to plead for them.

and serve a copy and type of the heavenly things, just as Moses was divinely instructed when about to build the tabernacle. For God said, "See that you make everything in imitation of the pattern shown you on the mountain."

For, being dissatisfied with His people, God says, "`There are days coming,' says the Lord, `When I will establish with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new Covenant--

`But this is the Covenant that I will covenant with the house of Israel after those days,' says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds and will write them upon their hearts. And I will indeed be their God and they shall be My People.

how much more certainly shall the blood of Christ, who strengthened by the eternal Spirit offered Himself to God, free from blemish, purify your consciences from lifeless works for you to serve the ever-living God?