For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, ¹  that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.

He is the one who saved us ¹  and called us with a holy calling, not based on ²  our works but on his own purpose and grace, granted to us in Christ Jesus before time began, ³ 

Because of this, in fact, I suffer as I do. ¹  But I am not ashamed, because I know the one in whom my faith is set ²  and I am convinced that he is able to protect what has been entrusted to me ³  until that day. ⁴ 

Finally the crown of righteousness is reserved for me. The Lord, the righteous Judge, will award it to me in that day – and not to me only, but also to all who have set their affection on ¹  his appearing.

For though you should in fact be teachers by this time, ¹  you need someone to teach you the beginning elements of God’s utterances. ²  You have gone back to needing ³  milk, not ⁴  solid food.

For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name, in having served and continuing to serve the saints.

So if perfection had in fact been possible through the Levitical priesthood – for on that basis ¹  the people received the law – what further need would there have been for another priest to arise, said to be in the order of Melchizedek and not in Aaron’s order?

He has no need to do every day what those priests do, to offer sacrifices first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people, since he did this in offering himself once for all.

“And there will be no need at all ¹  for each one to teach his countryman or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ since they will all know me, from the least to the greatest. ² 

For the law possesses a shadow of the good things to come but not the reality itself, and is therefore completely unable, by the same sacrifices offered continually, year after year, to perfect those who come to worship. ¹ 

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death, and he was not to be found because God took him up. For before his removal he had been commended as having pleased God.

Take care not to refuse the one who is speaking! For if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less shall we, if we reject the one who warns from heaven?

But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, ¹  and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out – he ²  will be blessed in what he does. ³ 

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters! ¹  Did not God choose the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?

Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? ¹  So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy.

Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. ¹  He who speaks against a fellow believer ²  or judges a fellow believer speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge. ³ 

They were shown ¹  that they were serving not themselves but you, in regard to the things now announced to you through those who proclaimed the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things angels long to catch a glimpse of.

Now ¹  this is the gospel ²  message ³  we have heard from him ⁴  and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. ⁵ 

Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. ¹  The old commandment is the word that you have already ²  heard.

But the one who hates his fellow Christian ¹  is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. ²