Hebrews 10-11

Hebrews 10

¹For the law, being only a poor copy of the future good things, and not the true image of those things, is never able to make the people who come to the altar every year with the same offerings completely clean.

²For if this had been possible, would there not have been an end of those offerings, because the worshippers would have been made completely clean and would have been no longer conscious of sins?

³But year by year there is a memory of sins in those offerings.

⁴Because it is not possible for the blood of oxen and goats to take away sins.

⁵So that when he comes into the world, he says, You had no desire for offerings, but you made a body ready for me;

⁶You had no joy in burned offerings or in offerings for sin.

⁷Then I said, See, I have come to do your pleasure, O God (as it is said of me in the roll of the book).

⁸After saying, You had no desire for offerings, for burned offerings or offerings for sin (which are made by the law) and you had no pleasure in them,

⁹Then he said, See, I have come to do your pleasure. He took away the old order, so that he might put the new order in its place.

¹⁰By that pleasure we have been made holy, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for ever.

¹¹And every priest takes his place at the altar day by day, doing what is necessary, and making again and again the same offerings which are never able to take away sins.

¹²But when Jesus had made one offering for sins for ever, he took his place at the right hand of God;

¹³And has been waiting there from that time, till all who are against him are made a foot-rest for his feet.

¹⁴Because by one offering he has made complete for ever those who are made holy.

¹⁵And the Holy Spirit is a witness for us: for after he had said,

¹⁶This is the agreement which I will make with them after those days, says the Lord; I will put my laws in their hearts, writing them in their minds; he said,

¹⁷And I will keep no more memory of their sins and of their evil-doings.

¹⁸Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no more offering for sin.

¹⁹So then, my brothers, being able to go into the holy place without fear, because of the blood of Jesus,

²⁰By the new and living way which he made open for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;

²¹And having a great priest over the house of God,

²²Let us go in with true hearts, in certain faith, having our hearts made free from the sense of sin and our bodies washed with clean water:

²³Let us keep the witness of our hope strong and unshaking, for he is true who has given his word:

²⁴And let us be moving one another at all times to love and good works;

²⁵Not giving up our meetings, as is the way of some, but keeping one another strong in faith; and all the more because you see the day coming near.

²⁶For if we do evil on purpose after we have had the knowledge of what is true, there is no more offering for sins,

²⁷But only a great fear of being judged, and of the fire of wrath which will be the destruction of the haters of God.

²⁸A man who has gone against the law of Moses is put to death without pity on the word of two or three witnesses:

²⁹But will not the man by whom the Son of God has been crushed under foot, and the blood of the agreement with which he was washed clean has been taken as an unholy thing, and who has had no respect for the Spirit of grace, be judged bad enough for a very much worse punishment?

³⁰For we have had experience of him who says, Punishment is mine, I will give reward. And again, The Lord will be judge of his people.

³¹We may well go in fear of falling into the hands of the living God.

³²But give thought to the days after you had seen the light, when you went through a great war of troubles;

³³In part, in being attacked by angry words and cruel acts, before the eyes of everyone, and in part, in being united with those who were attacked in this way.

³⁴For you had pity on those who were in prison, and had joy in the loss of your property, in the knowledge that you still had a better property and one which you would keep for ever.

³⁵So do not give up your hope which will be greatly rewarded.

³⁶For, having done what was right in God's eyes, you have need of waiting before his word has effect for you.

³⁷In a very little time he who is coming will come; he will not be slow.

³⁸But the upright man will be living by his faith; and if he goes back, my soul will have no pleasure in him.

³⁹But we are not of those who go back to destruction; but of those who have faith even to the salvation of the soul.

Hebrews 11

¹Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the sign that the things not seen are true.

²For by it our fathers had God's approval.

³By faith it is clear to us that the order of events was fixed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made from things which only seem to be.

⁴By faith Abel made a better offering to God than Cain, and he had witness through it of his righteousness, God giving his approval of his offering: and his voice still comes to us through it though he is dead.

⁵By faith Enoch was taken up to heaven so that he did not see death; he was seen no longer, for God took him away: for before he was taken, witness had been given that he was well-pleasing to God:

⁶And without faith it is not possible to be well-pleasing to him, for it is necessary for anyone who comes to God to have the belief that God is, and that he is a rewarder of all those who make a serious search for him.

⁷By faith Noah, being moved by the fear of God, made ready an ark for the salvation of his family, because God had given him news of things which were not seen at the time; and through it the world was judged by him, and he got for his heritage the righteousness which is by faith.

⁸By faith Abraham did as God said when he was ordered to go out into a place which was to be given to him as a heritage, and went out without knowledge of where he was going.

⁹By faith he was a wanderer in the land of the agreement, as in a strange land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who had a part with him in the same heritage:

¹⁰For he was looking for the strong town, whose builder and maker is God.

¹¹And by faith Sarah herself had power to give birth, when she was very old, because she had faith in him who gave his word;

¹²So that from one man, who was near to death, came children in number as the stars in heaven, or as the sand by the seaside, which may not be numbered.

¹³All these came to their end in faith, not having had the heritage; but having seen it with delight far away, they gave witness that they were wanderers and not of the earth.

¹⁴For those who say such things make it clear that they are searching for a country for themselves.

¹⁵And truly if they had kept in mind the country from which they went out, they would have had chances of turning back.

¹⁶But now their desire is for a better country, that is to say, for one in heaven; and so it is no shame to God to be named their God; for he has made ready a town for them.

¹⁷By faith Abraham made an offering of Isaac, when he was tested: and he with whom the agreement had been made gave up as an offering the only son of his body,

¹⁸Of whom it had been said, From Isaac will your seed take their name:

¹⁹Judging that God was able to give life even to the dead; and because of this he did get him back as if from death.

²⁰By faith Isaac, blessing Jacob and Esau, gave news of things to come.

²¹By faith Jacob gave a blessing to the two sons of Joseph, when he was near to death; and gave God worship, supported by his stick.

²²By faith Joseph, when his end was near, said that the children of Israel would go out of Egypt; and gave orders about his bones.

²³By faith Moses was kept secretly by his father and mother for three months after his birth, because they saw that he was a fair child; and they had no fear of the king's orders.

²⁴By faith Moses, when he became a man, had no desire to be named the son of Pharaoh's daughter;

²⁵Feeling that it was better to undergo pain with the people of God, than for a short time to have a taste of the pleasures of sin;

²⁶Judging a part in the shame of Christ to be better than all the wealth of Egypt; for he was looking forward to his reward.

²⁷By faith he went out of Egypt, not being turned from his purpose by fear of the wrath of the king; for he kept on his way, as seeing him who is unseen.

²⁸By faith he kept the Passover, and put the sign of the blood on the houses, so that the angel of destruction might not put their oldest sons to death.

²⁹By faith they went through the Red Sea as if it had been dry land, though the Egyptians were overcome by the water when they made an attempt to do the same.

³⁰By faith the walls of Jericho came down, after they had been circled for seven days.

³¹By faith Rahab, the loose woman, was not put to death with those who had gone against God's orders, because she had taken into her house in peace those sent to see the land.

³²What more am I to say? For there would not be time to give the stories of Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets:

³³Who through faith overcame kingdoms, did righteousness, got their reward, kept the mouths of lions shut,

³⁴Put out the power of fire, got safely away from the edge of the sword, were made strong when they had been feeble, became full of power in war, and put to flight the armies of the nations.

³⁵Women had their dead given back to them living; others let themselves be cruelly attacked, having no desire to go free, so that they might have a better life to come;

³⁶And others were tested by being laughed at or by blows, and even with chains and prisons:

³⁷They were stoned, they were cut up with knives, they were tested, they were put to death with the sword, they went about in sheepskins and in goatskins; being poor and in pain and cruelly attacked,

³⁸Wandering in waste places and in mountains and in holes in the rocks; for whom the world was not good enough.

³⁹And not one of these got the good things of the agreement, though they all had a good record through faith,

⁴⁰Because God had kept some better thing for us, so that it was not possible for them to become complete without us.