Hebrews 10
The full text of Hebrews 10 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 For the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of those realities. So it can never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year without end, perfect those who draw near to worship.
2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers, once cleansed, would no longer have had any consciousness of sins.
3 But in those sacrifices there is a yearly reminder of sins,
4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said:
"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me.
6 With burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, 'Here I am—
it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.'"
8 First he says, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them"—though they are offered according to the law.
9 Then he says, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second.
10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool.
14 For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are being made holy.
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16 "This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,"
17 then he adds:
"Their sins and their lawless deeds
I will remember no more."
18 And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any offering for sin.
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,
20 by the new and living way he opened for us through the curtain—that is, through his flesh—
21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
22 let us draw near with a true heart in the full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we confess, for the one who promised is faithful.
24 And let us consider how to spur one another on toward love and good deeds,
25 not neglecting to meet together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
26 For if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,
27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and a raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as unholy the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has outraged the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know the one who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people."
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 But remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.
33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were treated that way.
34 You suffered along with the prisoners and joyfully accepted the seizure of your property, knowing that you yourselves had a better and lasting possession.
35 So do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward.
36 You need endurance, so that after you have done the will of God you may receive what he has promised.
37 For yet "in a very little while,
the one who is coming will come and will not delay.
38 But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back,
I take no pleasure in him."
39 But we are not among those who shrink back and are destroyed, but among those who have faith and are saved.
Translation notes (12)
- Hebrews 10:1a Greek manuscripts divide between the singular verb dynatai, 'it can', which makes the law the subject, and the plural dynantai, which makes the sacrifices the subject; this translation follows the singular. The verse contrasts skia, 'shadow', with eikon, 'image', the latter denoting the true form of a thing rather than a mere copy.
- Hebrews 10:5a The author quotes Psalm 40:6 from the Septuagint, which reads soma de katērtisō moi, 'but a body you prepared for me'. The Masoretic Text has instead oznayim karita li, literally 'ears you dug for me', an idiom for obedient hearing. The Septuagint wording serves the argument here, presenting Christ's body as the offering that replaces animal sacrifice.
- Hebrews 10:7a The citation follows the Septuagint of Psalm 40:7-8. The phrase rendered 'in the scroll' translates the Greek en kephalidi bibliou, literally 'in the roll of the book'; kephalis originally named the knob around which a scroll was wound. The author of Hebrews reads the psalmist's words as the speech of Christ, whose obedience fulfills what the sacrifices of the previous verse could not.
- Hebrews 10:9a The Greek verb anairei, 'takes away' or 'abolishes', is elsewhere in the New Testament used of putting to death, giving the clause unusual force: the first arrangement is not merely superseded but terminated. Its counterpart stēsē, 'establish', echoes the language of covenant confirmation, so that the sacrificial order gives way to the accomplished will of God cited from Psalm 40.
- Hebrews 10:16a The author re-cites Jeremiah 31:33, quoted more fully in Hebrews 8:10, but reverses the order of the two terms: here the laws are put on hearts (kardia, 'heart') and written on minds (dianoia, 'mind, understanding'). The abbreviated citation moves directly to the promise of forgiveness in the next verse, the point on which the argument turns.
- Hebrews 10:17a The quotation continues Jeremiah 31:34, cited from the Septuagint. The Greek ou me mnesthesomai (οὐ μὴ μνησθήσομαι), 'I will remember no more', uses an emphatic double negative, the strongest form of denial available in Greek, underscoring the finality of the forgiveness promised in the new covenant.
- Hebrews 10:22a The paired participles rherantismenoi, 'having been sprinkled', and lelousmenoi, 'having been washed', recall the ordination of Israel's priests, who were washed with water and sprinkled with blood (Exodus 29:4, 21). The author applies this priestly consecration to all believers, who now draw near as priests themselves; many interpreters also hear an allusion to baptism in the washing of the body.
- Hebrews 10:28a The verse condenses Deuteronomy 17:6, where a capital sentence required the testimony of two or three witnesses. Greek athetesas, 'having set aside', rendered here as 'rejected', denotes annulling the law's authority rather than a single lapse; choris oiktirmon, 'without mercy', underscores that the Mosaic penalty admitted no clemency, setting up the greater warning of the following verse.
- Hebrews 10:29a The phrase 'blood of the covenant' echoes Exodus 24:8, where Moses sprinkled sacrificial blood to seal Israel's covenant. Greek koinon (κοινόν), 'common', denotes treating that blood as ordinary rather than holy, and the verb enybrizō, 'to insult outrageously', occurs only here in the New Testament.
- Hebrews 10:30a Both citations come from the Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:35-36. The first, emoi ekdikesis, ego antapodoso, 'vengeance is mine, I will repay', matches neither the Masoretic Text nor the Septuagint exactly, but agrees word for word with Paul's citation in Romans 12:19, suggesting a shared text form. The second citation follows Deuteronomy 32:36 as it stands in both Hebrew and Greek.
- Hebrews 10:34a Some manuscripts read, 'you suffered along with me in my chains.'
- Hebrews 10:38a The quotation follows the Septuagint of Habakkuk 2:4; the Masoretic Text reads be'emunato, 'by his faithfulness'. Early witnesses of Hebrews, including Papyrus 46, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, attach mou, 'my', to dikaios, 'righteous one', while the common Septuagint text attaches it to pistis, yielding 'by my faithfulness'. The author also reverses the Septuagint's clause order, placing the warning against shrinking back second.
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