I. Superiority of the New Pact (1.1–14)
Formerly God spoke fragmentarily and figuratively to the fathers through the features of prophecy, but in these final days he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he made the inheritor of all things, and through whom he initiated every era, and
being a radiation from his splendor
and the seal on his existence,
upholding all by the power of his word,
cleansing away sin,
he has taken his seat on high at the right hand of Majesty, greater than angels as the name he inherited is greater. For to what angel did he ever say
You are my Son,
this day have I brought you forth?
and also
I shall be his Father,
and he will be my Son?
Moreover, introducing his firstborn into the Creation, he says,
All angels of God, kneel to him.
He is making his angels be winds,
and his attendants be a burst of flame.
But to his Son,
Your throne, God, is from era to era,
and the scepter of justice
is the scepter of your reign.
You have loved the right way and hated lawlessness,
For this God, your God, anointed you
with the oil of joy, beyond your fellows.
And more:
You from the origin, Lord, founded earth,
and heavens you wrought with your hands.
They will pass away
while you abide,
they will wear out like old clothes,
you will discard them like a garment—
like a garment they will be changed,
while you are the same,
and years do not pass for you.
And to what angel did he ever say,
Sit at my right hand,
till I make your enemies your footstool?
Are not all angels [merely] helping spirits, to attend those who will inherit the rescue?
More urgently, then, must we heed what we have heard, not to drift off from it. If the teaching voiced by angels was binding, and to break or ignore it earned punishment, what refuge have we if we neglect the great rescue, the one first proclaimed by the Lord and then confirmed by those who heard it from him, with God’s added testimony in the form of signs and portents and every kind of miracle, along with different gifts the Spirit bestowed as he wished?
II. A Mediator Who Shares Our Humanity (2.5–18)
The angels, you see, were not put in charge of history’s coming order—as was made clear by a certain solemn testimony:
What is man, for you to have him in mind,
or the son of man, for you to look after him?
You have placed him a little below angels,
with splendor and dignity you have crowned him,
ordering all things beneath his feet.
Obviously, in ordering all things beneath his feet he left nothing unordered by him; yet now we see that all things are not so ordered. We do see, however, someone “a little below angels”—Jesus, crowned with splendor and dignity because of the death he suffered, that he might by God’s favor taste of death for everyone. It was right that the God for whom and through whom all things exist should perfect through suffering the captain of the rescue that leads many sons to splendor. For, clearly, the one sanctifying and those sanctified have all one origin—good reason for the sanctifier’s pride in calling them brothers. He says himself:
I shall exalt your name before my brothers,
Make it a song inside their gathering.
Moreover:
He will be all my trust.
Here am I, with the children God gave me.
Now, since offspring all have the same flesh and blood, he was closely fused with both, by his own death to crush death’s master (I mean the devil) and to free those who had been sentenced, by their very fear of death, to a lifetime of slavery. He does not, notice, take up the cause of angels, but takes up the seed of Abraham. That is why he had to resemble his brothers in every way, to be a sympathizing and trustworthy high priest before God and to cancel the sin that kept them from him. Since he, too, suffered and was tested, he can support those being tested.
Exhortation (3.1–4.2)
For this reason, sanctified brothers, as sharers in a summons from on high, focus your minds on the emissary and high priest we profess, on his fidelity to the one who sent him, like the fidelity of Moses to his house. Yet Jesus earns higher honor than Moses, to the degree that the builder of a house is honored above the house. Every house, you must admit, has a builder; but the builder of everything is God. Now Moses’ fidelity as an attendant on his entire household was vindicated by what was later said of him; but Christ’s claim on the house is that of a son—and we ourselves share the house he claims, if only we maintain a confident pride in what we hope for.
And so, as the Holy Spirit tells us:
If, today, you should hear his voice,
keep no hard heart in you,
as when you rebelled
at being tested in the desert.
Your fathers put me to the test
by their own standards,
and found out what I could do
over forty years.
I showed my wrath
toward that generation,
saying, “They ever stray in heart,
and do not find the way to me.”
So I pledged my wrath
as to their reaching my peace.
Take care, brothers, not to have a heart so misled by lack of fidelity that you fall off from the living God. Encourage one another, every day that we greet as “today,” lest any of you be hardened by the way sin cheats us (for we have our share in Christ if we stay fixed to the end in the venture we began). As the saying is:
If, today, you should hear his voice,
keep no hard heart in you,
as when you rebelled.
Who was it who, hearing, rebelled, if not all those leaving Egypt with Moses? At whom was he angered over forty years, if not those who strayed, who dropped dead in the desert? Against whom did he swear that they would not reach his peace, if not those who refused to believe? And we find, in fact, that they did not reach it because they lacked fidelity. Let us take care, then, with the promise of reaching peace still available to us, that none of you may prove remiss. We, after all, have heard the revelation, just as they did, though the message they heard did them no good, since they did not keep together in fidelity with those who heeded it.
III. The New Pact Is the Promised New Day (4.3–10)
We, as I said, are reaching peace because of our fidelity, according to the promise—
So I pledged my wrath
as to their reaching my peace—
though the fulfillment of this was settled from the world’s beginning. In one place, after all, it is said of the seventh day, “God was at peace, on the seventh day, from all the things he had fulfilled.” Yet, the same text speaks, by contrast, against “their reaching my peace.” Thus, since some are allowed to reach peace, the fact that those earlier given the revelation did not reach it (because they disobeyed) makes him set a new day, the “today” he spoke of to David after a lapse of years, in the passage already quoted:
If, today, you should hear his voice,
keep no hard heart in you.
If, you see, Joshua had given them peace, God would not name another (later) day. So a Sabbath peace is still to come for the people of God. To reach peace, clearly, is to take rest after one’s own work, as God rested after the work only he could do.
Exhortation (4.11–16)
Let us press on, then, toward our peace, not following their lead in ignoring what they heard. For God’s word lives and gives vitality, sharper than a double-edged knife, to penetrate to the division between impulse and intention, or to the bone’s outward articulation and its inner marrow, discriminating what the heart believes and what it follows. Nothing he made escapes his gaze, all is naked and turned about for his inspection. On him rests our diagnosis.
Having, then, a great high priest who has penetrated the heavens, let us stay strong in what we profess, for ours is not a high priest unable to feel our frailty but one tested like us in all our ways, sin apart. With confidence, then, let us approach the throne of favor, to find pity and favor for our rescue in the nick of time.
IV. A Priest with Our Frailties (5.1–10)
Every high priest, you must know, is singled out from other men to act for them in God’s affairs, to offer gifts and sacrifices as atonement for their sins. He can sympathize with mistakes and misdeeds, since he, too, has inborn weaknesses, and because of them he must make offerings for his own sins as well as the people’s. Nor does one assume this office on his own; he is called to it by God, just as Aaron was. Thus even Christ did not presume to make himself a high priest. That was done by the one who told him
You are my Son,
this day have I brought you forth.
Or as he says elsewhere:
You are a priest for all time
in common with Melchizedek.
While still in the flesh he used pleading and supplication to the one who could rescue him, with a piercing scream and tears, and he was answered for his devotion. Though he was the Son, he learned from suffering what it is to obey and, thus completed, he became the source of everlasting rescue for those who heed him, hailed by God as high priest in common with Melchizedek.
Exhortation (5.11–6.12)
On this point I have much to say, though to reason it out in words is hard, since you are now loath to listen. Actually you should, after so much time, be doing the teaching rather than need teaching in the simplest things God first revealed to you—you have gone back to needing milk, not solid food. It is obvious that anyone drinking milk for lack of true doctrine is a child. Only grown-ups eat solid food; they have a trained faculty for telling good from evil. So let us pass over what you first learned about Christ, and press on to the fullness of teaching. Why lay again the groundwork about renouncing acts that lead to death, or what is fidelity to God, or the proper rites for ablution or the laying on of hands, or how the dead rise and are judged eternally. It is time to go beyond that, God prospering us.
As for those, however, who have once received the light, who have had a taste of heaven’s gift and been sharers in the Holy Spirit, who have had a taste of God’s good word and the miracles still to come—for such people, falling away, to renew their former resolve is clearly impossible. They again crucify the Son of God, so far as they are concerned, and hold him up to mockery. See, for instance, how God blesses land that slakes its thirst from repeated rains and bears a crop rewarding those who worked it, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless, with a curse impending, and fated for the fire. We trust that you, dearly beloved, though we speak like this, are strong and sure of rescue. God is not unjust, that he would forget what you have done, or the love you have displayed for his honor, as you served and are serving his holy ones. We take heart that each of you will continue this dedication till what you hope for is finally realized, that you will no longer be loath to hear but eager to be like those who inherit what was promised by their fidelity and endurance.
V. In Common with Melchizedek (6.13–7.28)
When, you know, God made a pledge to Abraham, having nothing greater to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “Of a surety in blessing I will bless you, and in prospering you will prosper your line.” Thus Abraham, confident of the promise, obtained it. Men, for their part, swear by something greater than themselves, and put an end to controversy by a binding oath. But God, to show more firmly that his plan for inheritors of the promise is irrevocable, pledged himself by the oath. Thus, from a doubly binding bond, in which there can be no ambiguity from God, we may cling to this strong commitment as we seek haven, laying hold on the hope held out to us—our soul’s sure anchor, grappling to pull us in through the veil. Jesus blazed this trail for us, as high priest eternally in common with Melchizedek.
This Melchizedek, you see, was king of Salem, priest of the highest God, who met Abraham as he came back from slaughtering kings, and blessed him, and Abraham measured out for him a tenth of all he had won. The first meaning of his name is King of Justice, the second is King of Salem (or King of Peace). Fatherless, motherless, tribeless, with no beginning of his days or ending of his life, he had a commonality with the Son of God, insofar as he was a priest in perpetuity.
See the scale of this man, to whom the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of his prize winnings. Descendants of Levi, who obtain priesthood according to the Law, have the prerogative of tithing the people, who (being also sprung from the loins of Abraham) are their brothers. Yet one not descended from the Levites received a tithe from Abraham, and he bestowed his blessing on the receiver of the promises. No one contests that one who is lower down is blessed by one who is higher up. In our case, the men receiving the tithes are mortal, but in the case I speak of, the one who received tithes is still living, according to what is written. So, in a sense, even Levi, the receiver of tithes, also paid them through Abraham, since he was already in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.
Now if the priesthood were complete in Levi’s line, as was prescribed for the people by the Law, what need was there for a different priesthood in common with Melchizedek, and not in common with Aaron? If the priesthood changes, so of necessity does the Law. Yet the one we speak of was from a different tribe, no member of which officiated at the altar. It is clear that our Lord came from the tribe of Judah, to which Moses assigned no priesthood. And the matter is settled when the new priest appears in commonality with Melchizedek, a priesthood not sanctioned by an authorized lineage but by the miracle of a life never to be taken away. For the text, remember, is
You are a priest for all time
in common with Melchizedek.
The preceding dispensation was thus set aside as weak and ineffective—for the Law completed nothing—and a new way is opened toward a firmer expectation of companionship with God.
And this priesthood did not lack an oath, as when Levites became priests without an oath, but his was based on the word of him swearing:
The Lord has sworn and will not alter it:
“You are a priest for all time.”
By virtue of that, Jesus is the pledge of a higher Pact. There were many other priests, since death denied them permanence. But, since his is for all time, he holds a priesthood that is indissoluble. That is why he can rescue in every way those rising up to God through him, living always to intervene for them. It was fitting that we have just this kind of high priest—holy, blameless, without taint, not associating with sinners, high above the heavens. He does not need, like those high priests, daily to make offerings first for their own sins and then for those of the people. He, rather, did this once for all when he offered up himself. The Law then appoints high priests having weaknesses; but the Son is faultless forever, by virtue of the oath which supersedes the Law.
Exhortation (8.1–6)
Here is the point of what has been said so far: Our high priest is so great that he sits to the right of Majesty’s throne in the heavens, officiating at the Holy Place, in the truest Shrine, not assembled by men but made firm by the Lord. And since every high priest is appointed to offer up gifts and sacrifices, this priest, too, had to have something to offer up. He could not do this on earth, where the Law ordains what and how a priest can sacrifice—making it only a shadow-pattern of what is in heaven, according to the instructions given Moses for making the Shrine, in just these words: “Be careful to make everything just like the pattern laid out for you on the mountain.” But our priest presides over higher mysteries, as guarantor of the greater Pact based on greater promises.
VI. The Old Pact Is Canceled (8.7–10.18)
Obviously, if the first Pact had been faultless, there would be no point in waiting for a second. But instead he finds fault in those under it.
“Look! The days are coming,” says the Lord,
“when I will conclude, with the house of Jacob
and with the house of Judah, a new Pact,
I made with their fathers
on the day I took their hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
since they did not abide by my Covenant,
so I gave up their care (says the Lord).
Now this is the Pact I will conclude
for the house of Israel after the former days
(says the Lord).
While I fix my laws in their minds,
I shall also write them in their hearts.
And I shall be as their God,
and they shall be as my people.
And no one must teach his fellow citizen,
and no one teach his brother,
saying, ‘Recognize the Lord,’
since all will know me,
from the least to the greatest,
and I will show mercy to their wrongs,
and will not remember their sins.”
By speaking of a new Pact, he made the old one obsolete; and the obsolete, the antiquated, is evanescing.
The first Pact, it is true, had rules for worship, and a sanctuary in the created order. There a Shrine was prepared; in it were the lampstand, and the table, and the place for grain offering—it was called the Holy Place. But beyond a second veil was the Holy of Holies, with the gold incense-altar and the Ark of the Pact cased in gold. Here were the gold jar keeping the manna, the staff of Aaron that blossomed, the tablets of the Pact, and the Cherubim of Splendor hovering above the Purgation Site—things it is now impossible to describe exactly.
Given these arrangements, the priests continually enter the first Shrine to perform the sacred acts, but into the second only the high priest enters, and only once a year, and not without blood to offer for himself and for the people’s unrecognized sins. As the Holy Spirit makes clear, the way into the sanctuary cannot be revealed while there is still validity in the first Shrine—which is a symbol for its time, where gifts and sacrifices are offered without the power to restore the inner self of the one performing them, affecting as they do food and drink and ablutions, fleshly requirements imposed before the moment of their being put right.
Christ, however, is now at hand, high priest of blessings that are to come in a greater and final Shrine, one not made by hands, indeed not in this order of Creation. He has made a one-time entry into this Holy Place, pioneering an all-time rescue, not by virtue of goat blood or calf blood, but by his own blood. If, after all, the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkled ashes of a heifer, make holy the unclean, purifying even the flesh, how much more does Christ’s blood, unstained, offered in the timeless Spirit, cleanse the inner self of deathly activity to serve the God of life?
This is what makes him the guarantor of a new Pact, so that—a death having taken place for release from offenses committed under the first Pact—those designated might receive the everlasting inheritance that was pledged them. Where inheritance is concerned, it is recognized, the death of the testator must be certified; it has no force so long as the testator is alive. Thus even the first Pact was not initiated without blood. After every requirement of the Law had been promulgated by Moses to the entire people, he took the blood of calves, along with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the Pact that God has put into effect for you.” And the Shrine and all the instruments of worship he sprinkled in the same way with blood. That is why nearly all purifications under the Law are by blood, since without shed blood there is no freeing from sin.
Now if the copy of the heavens must be purified by such sacrifices, heaven itself must be purified by sacrifices that are higher still. Christ, you know, entered no Holy Place of human construction, the mere reflection of what truly is, but into the reality itself, standing face to face with God as our representative—not to offer himself over and over, as the high priest enters the sanctuary annually to offer blood not his own. Doing that would mean, for Jesus, his own repeated dying down through ages. Instead, when the wait of ages ended, he came on the scene a single time, to erase sin by sacrificing himself. And whereas a single death is set for all men, and after that judgment, correspondingly Christ made a single offering to forgive the sins of many, and after that will he appear again, without sin, to rescue those waiting for him.
The Law, remember, is only the reflection cast back upon us of good things still to come, not what those things really are; it can in no way complete its celebrants by the same sacrifices they keep offering endlessly, year after year.
In fact, would not the sacrifices have ceased if those offering them had once for all been purified, so that their inner self no longer had sins to recognize? Indeed, the sacrifices just remind them of the sins they have committed, year after year, since the blood of bulls and goats cannot take sins away.
Therefore he enters Creation with these words:
Sacrifices and offerings you did not want,
but you fashioned me a body.
Holocausts and sin sacrifices
you took no pleasure in,
they pleased you not.
Then I said, “Here am I,
to do your will, God”
(as it is written in the Scroll of me).
Stating beforehand that “sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin-offerings, you did not want and took no pleasure in”—though these be offered in accord with the Law—he goes on to say, “Here am I, to do your will.” He removes the former to put in its place the latter. By that decision, we are purified once for all by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ.
Each of the high priests performed his duty day-by-day in a standing position, offering over and over the sacrifices that cannot take away sin. But he, having offered a single sacrifice for sins, is seated eternally to the right of God, with the expectation that his enemies will be put as a cushion under his feet. For with a single sacrifice he has completed for all time his purified ones. The Holy Spirit itself witnesses this, having said
“This is the Pact I have sealed with them
after past days,” says the Lord.
“Placing my laws in their hearts,
I shall also write them in their minds
And their sins I shall not remember,
nor their transgressions.”
Since they have been freed from sins, why make offerings for them?
Exhortation (10.19–10.39)
So, brothers, emboldened by the blood of Jesus to enter into the Holy of Holies—where he opened a new and living way for us to pass through the veil (that is, through his flesh)—having now a great priest in the house of God, let us go to him with firm heart and absolute fidelity, our hearts sprinkled clean of all evil intent, and bodies washed with pure water. Let us grip without faltering the hope we profess, since he is true to his promise. Let us keep one another in mind, an inspiration to love and good works, not neglecting the assembly as some do, but strengthening one another, the more since we see what day is coming.
But if we sin again on purpose, after seeing the truth, no sacrifice remains for our sins, only a terrifying judgment to come, and a wild fire voracious of recalcitrants. Anyone rejecting the Law of Moses dies without pity if two or three testify. What worse punishment will he earn who has trampled on the Son of God, disregarding the blood of the Pact in which he was cleansed, and mocking the favors of the Spirit? We know, of course, who says, “Punishment is mine, I shall exact it,” and “The Lord will judge his people.” Fearful is it to fall into the hands of the living God.
Call to mind former days when, after your enlightenment, you wrestled mightily with persecution, and were either put up for public ridicule and abuse, or sided with those being treated that way. Indeed, you felt as your own what others underwent in prison, and submitted contentedly to deprivation of your be-longings, conscious that what you own is a greater thing that will last. So do not give up on your boldness, which has its own prize. You need, you realize, an endurance that by doing God’s will achieves what was promised. Consider:
Even now, little by little, the one who is coming
will arrive, he will not delay.
By fidelity the just man will live,
but if he backslides he loses my soul’s favor.
We are not ones to backslide, but ones whose fidelity preserves our life.
VII. Fidelity to the Old Pact a Model for Fidelity to the New (11.1–11.40)
Fidelity is the basis of things hoped for, the confirmation of things unseen. By their fidelity men of old were vindicated. By fidelity we realize how history was put together by the Word of God, how visible things arose from things invisible.
By fidelity Abel offered God a richer sacrifice than Cain’s, and by that he was vindicated as just, God attesting to his offerings, and therefore he speaks on after death.
By fidelity Enoch was exempted from seeing death, so he could not be found, with God exempting him. He was vindicated, that is, because he pleased God even before his exemption, and without fidelity one cannot please God, since to approach God one must believe that he is and that he rewards those seeking him.
By fidelity Noah, divinely warned of dangers not yet visible, complied and built an ark to rescue his household, and by it he indicted the world, and became the inheritor of a justice that accords with fidelity.
By fidelity Abraham, when summoned, obeyed and set out for the land he would inherit—set off not knowing where he was going. By fidelity he perched on the land promised him as if it were alien property, lodging in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of what was pledged to both. He was looking ahead, you see, for a city planned and raised by God from its basis. By fidelity, along with Sarah (herself barren), he regained the power to inject seed beyond the normal age, since he trusted God’s fidelity to his pledge. Thus from one man, practically moribund, came offspring like to heaven’s stars in number and like to sands of the seashore beyond number.
All the foregoing retained their fidelity till death, though not yet in possession of what was pledged them, but seeing it far off and greeting it and presenting themselves as outsiders and transients in the land. People who speak this way are clearly still on a quest for their real home. Were the place they left still on their mind, there was time for them to turn back. But in fact they aspire to a higher place—in fact, to heaven. God therefore takes pride in being called their God, for he has readied a city for them.
By fidelity Abraham took Isaac along and, put to the test, was offering up his only son, though he had received the pledges, which told him, “Your seed shall have title in the name of Isaac.” Still he reasoned that God could revive the dead—and, symbolically, that is what happened for him.
By fidelity Isaac blessed what would happen to Jacob and Esau.
By fidelity Jacob, on the point of death, blessed each son of Joseph and saluted his staff at the top.
By fidelity the dying Joseph foresaw the Israelites’ wanderings, and identified where his bones would lie.
By fidelity the parents of Moses, at his birth, hid him for three months, since they saw how well favored he was, and they were not intimidated by the king’s ban.
By fidelity the grown Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, preferring a share in the sufferings of God’s people to the momentary pleasures of sin, and holding revilement with Christ greater riches than Egypt’s treasures, since he had eyes for nothing but the recompense awaiting him.
By fidelity he forsook Egypt, not intimidated by the wrath of the king, but steadied as he gazed toward the one not yet seen.
By fidelity he enacted the Pasch and the pouring of the blood, so that the slayer of firstborn sons might leave them unaffected.
By fidelity they walked through the Red Sea as on dry land, and when the Egyptians tried to follow they drowned.
By fidelity the walls of Jericho were brought down after being circled for seven days.
By fidelity Rahab the whore did not die with the unbelievers since she did not betray the scouts sent ahead.
What more can I say? Time forbids mention of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephtha, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who by fidelity fought down kingdoms, managed the right outcome, realized the pledges, baffled the jaws of lions, quelled the force of fire, eluded the knife’s bite, drew strength from frailty, grew strong in war, beat down foreign battalions—women even had their dead revived. Others, however, were torn apart, not accepting release in order to get a higher resurrection. Still others underwent trial by insult and the lash, even by chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, sawn asunder, slain by a knife’s blow. They lived homeless in sheepskins and goatskins, deprived, afflicted, ill-treated, these people better than the world deserved; driven into deserts, and mountains, and caves, and earthen tunnels. Yet all of them, vindicated by fidelity, had not received the future things pledged, God holding them in readiness, so that their completion had to come with ours.
Exhortation (12.1–17)
With this in mind, with such a cloud of watchers around us, putting aside every encumbrance and sin that cripples us, let us run with determination the course set before us, keeping our eyes on the source and seal of our fidelity, Jesus—who, in place of available pleasure, submitted himself to the cross, shrugging off its shame, so that now he sits at the right of God’s throne. Take the full measure, then, of the one who defied the enmity of sinners ranged against him, lest you flag in weariness of spirit.
You have not yet borne the struggle with sin to the point of bloodshed. Yet you are oblivious to the supporting words that call you sons:
Do not, my son, neglect the Lord’s training,
or give up when he rebukes you
for he trains the one he loves
and afflicts every son he accepts.
Bear it as training. God is treating you as sons. What son is not trained by his father? If you lack the training that all sons share, you are bastards, not sons. Moreover, we had fathers in the flesh as our trainers, and we respected them. Should we not far more submit to the Father of our spirits, and thus have life? The first trained us for a brief time, as seemed best to them, but he promotes us to a share in his own holiness. All training seems for a time not easy but hard, though later it reaps as its harvest a life of peace in justice, for those who have endured the training. So stiffen your trembling hands and wobbling knees and pace straight on so as not to become crippled, but healed.
Seek peace with everyone, and that holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Be careful that no one falls short of God’s favor, that no “bitter root grow to make trouble,” for many the source of contamination—lecherous people, or low-minded as Esau was, who for a single dish gave up his birthright. Remember that he wanted to inherit the blessing but was turned down. He had no way to change his life, though he sought it in tears.
VIII. The New Pact More Majestic (12.18–12.24)
You have not, obviously, arrived this time at a material mountain, with burning fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind; no ringing trumpet or spoken words, at whose sound hearers begged to hear no more, so did they cringe from the decree, “Let but a beast touch the mountain, it will be stoned to death.” So intimidating was what he saw that Moses said, “I am shaking with fear.” No, you have arrived at Mount Zion and the city of a living God, heavenly Jerusalem, with thousands of angels in joyous company, and all of heaven’s registered firstborn, and God judging all, and the completed souls of the just, and Jesus, guarantor of the new Pact, and a blood outpoured more eloquent than Abel’s.
Be on your guard not to desert God as he speaks. If, after all, those could not escape when they deserted his message delivered on earth, how can we escape, abandoning him while he speaks to us from heaven? He whose voice once caused an earthquake has now declared, “Again, but finally, shall I cause not only earth but heaven to quake.” By saying “again, but finally” he indicates the overthrow of all things a quake can affect, meaning that what is not affected will last. Let us be glad, then, that we have received a reign not subject to quake, and celebrate God acceptably, yielding to him with awe, for our God is a fire inextinguishable.
Maintain love for the brothers. Do not be lax in receiving visitors, since some have unknowingly shown hospitality to angels. Keep in mind the imprisoned as if you were in prison, too, and the tortured as if their body were yours. Let marriage be honored by all, and let its bed remain pure, since God condemns the impure and adulterers. Itch not for money, but be content with what you have. For he has said, “I will not let you go, nor will I forsake you,” so we can take heart to say,
The Lord is my support, I shall not fear.
How can anyone hurt me?
Heed your leaders, who brought the Word of God to you; observe the result of their conduct, and copy their fidelity. Jesus Christ remains the same, yesterday and today and through the ages. Do not veer off after fancy and unusual teachings—since it is well, you know, for the heart to be steadied by God’s favor, not by food codes that did no good for those observing them in the past. We have an altar where officiators at the Shrine are not allowed to eat. The animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin-offerings, have their carcasses burnt outside the camp—just as Jesus, in order to sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the city gate. Let us go to him outside the camp, to share his humiliation, since we have no lasting city here but are on a quest for that to come. Through him let us always bring an offering of praise to God—the harvest of lips professing his title.
Do not forget good works, and share your good with others, since these are the offerings that please God. Heed your leaders and take guidance from them, since they keep watch over your souls, to render an account of them. Make that responsibility joyful for them, not burdensome to them and no benefit to you. Pray for us, inasmuch as we are relying on an honorable inner self and intending to be honorable in all our acts. I especially urge you to this, so that I may get back to you the sooner.
May the God of peace—who brought out from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, Jesus our Lord, whose blood sealed the everlasting Pact—may that God fit you in every good way to do his will, fashioning you as a sight pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be everlasting splendor, amen. I encourage you, brothers, to put up with this supporting address, since I have kept it short for you. Be informed that our brother Timothy has been freed, and if he reaches me soon I shall see you with him. Embrace all your leaders and all the saints. Those in Italy embrace you. The favor of God be with you all.