2
“We Must Pay Even More Careful Attention to the Things We Have Been Taught”
1 That is the reason why we must pay even more careful attention to the things we have been taught, so that we don’t drift away.
2 If the instruction delivered through angels, you see, proved so binding that every violation and act of disobedience received its just penalty,
3 how will we ourselves possibly escape punishment if we neglect so mighty a salvation—a salvation which, after first having been communicated through the Lord, was confirmed to us as true and reliable by the very people who heard him,
4 as God kept adding his own testimony to theirs by performing signs and wonders and various miracles and by distributing gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will?
5 It is not angels, you see, whom God planned to put in charge of the world to come, about which we are speaking.
6 Rather, as it is solemnly declared somewhere in the Scriptures:
“What is man, that you are so concerned about him,
or the son of man, that you come to his aid?
7 You have made him for a short time lower than the angels,
yet have planned to place on him a crown of glory and honor;
8 you will surely subject under his feet the whole creation.”+
When it says here that God will “subject to him the whole creation,” it means that there isn’t anything that God will not put in subjection to mankind. At the present time, however, we still don’t see “the whole creation” to mankind “subjected.”
9 Even so, we do have an example of one “made lower than the angels” for a “short time,” namely, Jesus, now crowned with “glory and honor” because of the death he suffered. He was made lower than the angels for a short time so that he could experience death, by the gift of God, on behalf of+ all mankind.
10 It wasn’t out of place for God, you see, for whom and through whom the whole creation exists, in order to bring to glory many sons, to use suffering to fully and finally consecrate for priestly service the pioneer of their salvation.
11 Indeed, the one who sets people apart as a special holy possession and for sacred service, and those who are so set apart: It is the same stock from which they all come, for which reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters:
12 “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters;
it is in the midst of the assembly that I will sing in praise of what you have done.”+
13 And again,
“I will place my trust in him,”
that is, “I and the disciples God has entrusted to my care.”+
14 Since “the disciples,” therefore, share in a weak and mortal nature, he himself likewise took on the same, so that by his death he could break the power of the one who has such fierce ability to bring about death (that is, the devil),
15 and set free those who, because of their fear of death, throughout their entire lives were subject to slavery.
16 It isn’t angels, you see, as one would agree, to whose aid Jesus comes, but the seed of Abraham.
17 That is why it was necessary for him to be made like his brothers and sisters in indeed every respect, so that he could become in his service to God a merciful and trustworthy high priest, so that he could turn God’s wrath away from the people and remove the guilt of their sins by making atonement for them.
18 Indeed, because Jesus himself was tempted and knows what it is to suffer, he is able to help those who are being tempted.