Hebrews 10:5-25

5So, when Christ came into the world, he said to his Father, ‘You have not wanted people to offer sacrifices and other gifts to you. Instead, you have prepared a body for me to offer to you.

6Sacrifices do not make you happy. If people burn whole animals as a sacrifice, or if they offer a sacrifice to make them clean from their sins, that does not make you happy.

7Then I said, “Here I am, my God. I have come to do what you want. That is what it says about me in the Bible.” ’

8So think about what Christ said there. First he said to God, ‘You have not wanted gifts and sacrifices of animals. Any kind of sacrifice like that does not make you happy.’ But we know that Moses' rules taught about those sacrifices. God's law said that they were necessary.

9Then Christ said, ‘Here I am. I have come to do what you want.’ In that way, Christ took away the first agreement and its rules about sacrifices. Christ's sacrifice of his own body is the new way that God forgives our sins.

10Jesus Christ was ready to do what God wanted. He offered his own body to God once, for all time. Because of Christ's sacrifice, God has made us clean so that we belong to him.

11Every day, the priests do their work to serve God. They offer the same sacrifices to God again and again. But those sacrifices can never take away people's sins.

12But Christ, our special priest, offered one sacrifice to take away our sins. He did that once, for all time. After that, he sat down at God's right side to rule with him.

13Since then, he waits for God to win against his enemies completely. They will become like a place for him to put his feet.

14So, as a result of his one sacrifice, Christ has made God's people completely clean for all time.

15God's Holy Spirit also shows us that these things are true. He says this first:

16‘The Lord God says: After the time of the old agreement, I will make a new agreement with my people. It will be like this: I will put my laws deep inside them. I will put them into their thoughts.’

17Then he says this: ‘I will not continue to think about their sins when they do not obey my laws.’

18So that is the way that God forgives our sins. When God has done that, we do not need to have any other sacrifice to take away our sins.

19So then, Christian friends, we see that Jesus died as a sacrifice on our behalf. Because of that, we may go into God's Most Holy Place. We are not afraid to do that.

20Jesus has opened a new way for us to come near to God. That way gives us life with God. It leads us through the curtain into God's Most Holy Place. Jesus opened that curtain for us when he offered his own body to God as a sacrifice.

21We have a great priest who rules the people of God's house.

22So we should come near to God and we should not be afraid. But we must be honest and we must continue to trust him. He has made us clean from the dirt of our sins. Our thoughts no longer give us trouble about our sins. We have become clean. It is like he has washed our bodies with clean water.

23We know that we can trust God to do the things that he has promised. So we must continue to expect those things. We must tell other people that we trust God. We should not stop doing that.

24We should think about how we can help one another. We want everyone to show love to each other. We want everyone to do good things to help one another.

25Some people have stopped meeting with the group of Christians. But that is not good. We should all continue to meet together. We need to help one another to be strong and brave. That is now even more important, because the Lord's great day is coming. You know that the Lord will return soon.