6. When everything in the Tent was made ready in this way, the priests went into the first room every day to worship.
7. But only the high priest could go into the second room, and he did that only once a year. He could never enter the inner room without taking blood with him, which he offered to God for himself and for sins the people did without knowing they did them.
8. The Holy Spirit uses this to show that the way into the Most Holy Place was not open while the system of the old Holy Tent was still being used.
9. This is an example for the present time. It shows that the gifts and sacrifices offered cannot make the conscience of the worshiper perfect.
10. These gifts and sacrifices were only about food and drink and special washings. They were rules for the body, to be followed until the time of God’s new way.
11. But when Christ came as the high priest of the good things we now have, he entered the greater and more perfect tent. It is not made by humans and does not belong to this world.
12. Christ entered the Most Holy Place only once—and for all time. He did not take with him the blood of goats and calves. His sacrifice was his own blood, and by it he set us free from sin forever.
13. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a cow are sprinkled on the people who are unclean, and this makes their bodies clean again.
14. How much more is done by the blood of Christ. He offered himself through the eternal Spirit as a perfect sacrifice to God. His blood will make our consciences pure from useless acts so we may serve the living God.
15. For this reason Christ brings a new agreement from God to his people. Those who are called by God can now receive the blessings he has promised, blessings that will last forever. They can have those things because Christ died so that the people who lived under the first agreement could be set free from sin.
16. When there is a will, it must be proven that the one who wrote that will is dead.
17. A will means nothing while the person is alive; it can be used only after the person dies.
18. This is why even the first agreement could not begin without blood to show death.
19. First, Moses told all the people every command in the law. Next he took the blood of calves and mixed it with water. Then he used red wool and a branch of the hyssop plant to sprinkle it on the book of the law and on all the people.
20. He said, “This is the blood that begins the Agreement that God commanded you to obey.”