Study Desk

And this hope is like a strong band for our souls, fixed and certain, and going in to that which is inside the veil;

Where Jesus has gone before us, as a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

For this Melchizedek, the king of Salem, a priest of the Most High God, who gave Abraham his blessing, meeting him when he came back after putting the kings to death,

Being without father or mother, or family, having no birth or end to his life, being made like the Son of God, is a priest for ever.

Now if it was possible for things to be made complete through the priests of the house of Levi (for the law was given to the people in connection with them), what need was there for another priest who was of the order of Melchizedek and not of the order of Aaron?

For he of whom these things are said comes of another tribe, of which no man has ever made offerings at the altar.

For it has been witnessed of him, You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

(For those were made priests without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by him who says of him, The Lord gave his oath, which he will not take back, that you are a priest for ever);

And it is true that there have been a great number of those priests, because death does not let them go on for ever;

But this priest, because his life goes on for ever, is unchanging.

So that he is fully able to be the saviour of all who come to God through him, because he is ever living to make prayer to God for them.

It was right for us to have such a high priest, one who is holy and without evil, doing no wrong, having no part with sinners, and made higher than the heavens:

Who has no need to make offerings for sins every day, like those high priests, first for himself, and then for the people; because he did this once and for ever when he made an offering of himself.

The law makes high priests of men who are feeble; but the word of the oath, which was made after the law, gives that position to a Son, in whom all good is for ever complete.

Now every high priest is given authority to take to God the things which are given and to make offerings; so that it is necessary for this man, like them, to have something for an offering.

Being servants of that which is a copy and an image of the things in heaven, as Moses, when he was about to make the Tent, had special orders from God: for, See, he said, that you make everything like the design which you saw in the mountain.

For if that first agreement had been as good as possible, there would have been no place for a second.

For, protesting against them, he says, See, the days are coming when I will make a new agreement with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah;

Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand, to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; for they did not keep the agreement with me, and I gave them up, says the Lord.

For this is the agreement which I will make with the people of Israel after those days: I will put my laws into their minds, writing them in their hearts: and I will be their God, and they will be my people: