9:1 The former one had regulations for divine service, and an earthly holy place.

9:2 A Tent of Meeting was built, with the front part, the Holy Place, containing the lamp stand and the table where the bread was set out.

9:3 Then behind the second curtain in the Tent of Meeting, called the Holiest Place,

9:4 there was the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant, also overlaid in gold. And inside of that were the golden jar of manna and the rod of Aaron that budded, along with the tablets of the Contract.

9:5 Over the Ark were the majestic cherubs, covering the Mercy Seat. But we cannot say more about that right now.

9:6 Now with everything having been properly set up, the priests are continually going into the front part of the Tent of Meeting to perform their duties.

9:7 But once a year, only the Ruling Priest goes into the back room, and not without blood to offer for his own sake and also for the people, for failures made in ignorance.

9:8 In this way the Holy Spirit was bringing to our attention that the way into the Holiest Place was not yet seen, as long as this first Tent of Meeting was still standing.

9:9 It was an illustration for the present time, showing that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were unable to clear the conscience of the one offering them.

9:10 It was only about food, drink, many immersions, and good works of the flesh, imposed upon them until the time of a new way.

9:11 But the Anointed came along as the Ruling Priest of better things through a greater and more complete “tent of meeting”— one not made by hands (that is to say, one not of this creation).

9:12 And it was not the blood of goats and calves but his very own blood that he carried into the Holiest Place, once for all eternity, obtaining our redemption.

9:13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and heifer’s ashes sprinkled over the contaminated ones, could make them holy and purify the flesh,

9:14 how much more will the blood of the Anointed, who through the eternal Spirit offered his flawless self to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works for divine service to the living God!

9:15 For this reason, he is the mediator of a new unilateral contract. By means of his death he released us from our having crossed the line under the first contract, so that those who were invited could receive their eternal inheritance.

9:16 For where there is a legal will, there must be the death of the one who made it.

9:17 A will is not in force until the one who made it dies; it is powerless while they live.

9:18 This is why the first contract had to be dedicated with blood.

9:19 For when Moses had given the people all the rules of the law, he took the blood of calves and goats and mixed it with water, red wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the book and all the people.

9:20 And he said, “This is the blood of the contract which God has made with you.”

9:21 He also sprinkled the Tent of Meeting, as well as all the utensils for the divine service.

9:22 In fact, pretty much everything had to be cleansed with blood according to the law; without shed blood there is no pardon.

9:23 So it was necessary for these patterns of the things in heaven to be cleansed in this way, but the actual heavenly things required better sacrifices.

9:24 It was not a Holy Place made by hands that the Anointed went into— those were models of the real thing— but in heaven itself, to be presented to God on our behalf.

9:25 Not that he should have to offer himself often, as did the ruling priests who had to enter the Holiest Place each year with the blood of others.

9:26 In that case he would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the completion of the ages, he appeared in order to annul failures by means of the sacrifice of himself.

9:27 And just as it is appointed for people to die once and then face judgment,

9:28 so also the Anointed was offered once to take upon himself the failures of many. And he will be seen again by those who wait for him, not to deal with failures, but for deliverance.