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“The Messiah...Passed through the Superior and More Perfect Tabernacle”
1 Now then, the first covenant was also characterized by requirements for worship and by a sanctuary, located on the earth.
2 Furnished and set up in two sections was a tabernacle, in the first section of which were located the lampstand and the table with the Bread of the Presence. This first and outer section is called the Holy Place.
3 Behind the second curtain, in turn, was the inner part of the sanctuary, called the Most Holy Place,
4 which had for burning incense an altar adorned with gold, and the ark of the covenant, covered on all sides with gold. Inside the ark were the gold jar containing the manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant,
5 and above it were the cherubim of the Glory, whose wings overshadowed the atonement cover. But now is not the time to explain these things in detail.
6 Now, with these things in this way set up, it is the first section of the tabernacle into which the priests enter regularly, to carry out their sacred duties.
7 The inner part of the sanctuary, however, may be entered only once a year by the high priest alone, who must take with him the blood of a sin offering, which he sprinkles to atone for his own sins and for the sins that the people themselves had committed in ignorance,
8 the Holy Spirit making it clear by this arrangement that entrance into that which the inner part of the sanctuary represented was still closed, as long as the first tabernacle remained standing.
9 The first tabernacle was a parable pointing symbolically to the present time, according to which sacrifices and offerings are presented that are unable to fully and finally consecrate the worshiper with respect to the conscience,
10 but deal only with foods and drinks and various kinds of ceremonial washing—requirements pertaining to the body, imposed until the time set by God for a better order to be established.
11 The Messiah, however, when he made his public appearance as high priest with respect to the good things that have come, passed through the superior and more perfect tabernacle not made by human hands, that is, not of the earth.
12 And it was not with the blood of goats and young bulls that he entered once and for all into the original sanctuary, but with his own blood, having found a payment for release from slavery that endures forever into the very ages.
13 If the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ritually defiled, you see, set them apart to God with respect to the cleansing of the body,
14 how much more will the blood of the Messiah, who offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God through the eternal Spirit, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve and worship the living God?
15 That is the reason why it is a new covenant of which he is the intermediary, so that, there having taken place a death to release them by payment from the slavery brought on because of their violations under the first covenant, those who have been summoned may receive what was promised, namely, that inheritance that endures forever into the ages.
16 In the case of a covenant, you see, it is necessary for the death of the covenant-sacrifice to be presented.+
17 Indeed, a covenant: It is on the basis of sacrificial victims that its reliability is put beyond doubt, since it is never strong while the covenant-sacrifice is still alive.+
18 That is why not even the first covenant was put into effect without blood.
19 Indeed, after all the commandments stipulated in Torah had been declared by Moses to all the people, Moses took the blood of young bulls, mixed with water, and, using hyssop branches tied together with scarlet wool, sprinkled it on these: Both the scroll itself and all the people.
20 As he did so, he said, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has commanded ᵖyou to obey.”+
21 He also sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels used in worship.
22 Sacrificial blood is Torah’s cleansing provision, in fact, for just about everything, and apart from the blood of a sacrifice being poured out there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Whereas in the case of the sketches of the heavenly originals, therefore, it was these things with which they had to be cleansed, the heavenly originals themselves had to be cleansed with sacrifices superior to these.
24 It wasn’t a sanctuary made by human hands that the Messiah entered, you see, a mere representation of the original, but heaven itself, so as now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it his purpose to offer himself again and again, in the way the Aaronic high priest enters the inner part of the sanctuary year after year with blood that is not his own,
26 because in that case he would have had to suffer death many times since the foundation of the world. As things stand, however, it is in a unique and decisive event, at the culmination of the ages, that the Messiah has appeared, for the purpose of removing the guilt of sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And just as surely as it is appointed for people to die once, and after this to face judgment,
28 so too the Messiah, having been offered in sacrifice once for all time to “bear the sins of many,”+ will appear a second time, not for the purpose of atoning for sin, but to bring salvation to those who are so eagerly waiting for him.