11 So remember that you were not born Jews. (They call you The Uncircumcised).
12 Remember you did not know Christ at that time. You were far away from the people of Israel. You had no part in the agreements which God promised to them. You had no hope and you were without God in this world.
13 At one time you were far away, but now you have been brought near to God by the blood death of Jesus Christ.
16 A person can say who will get his things when he dies. He writes this agreement down. Before anyone can have them, it must be proved that the person has died.
17 The agreement has no power until the one who made it has died. It has no power as long as the one who made it is living.
18 So even the old agreement made by God was not begun without blood.
19 Moses told all the people every part of the law. Then he took the blood of young cows and goats. He put some of the blood on the book of the law itself and on all the people. He took water and red wool and a plant called hyssop.
20 As he did this, he said, This is the blood for the agreement which God has made for you.
17 But it is God who has done all this. He sent Christ to make peace with us and to bring us back to himself. Now he has given us the work of bringing other people back to God.
18 God was in Christ. He brought the world back to himself. He forgave them for the wrong things they had done. And he gave us the message that will bring people back to himself.
19 So we are messengers for Christ. God is using us to call people. So we are standing here for Christ and begging people, Come back to God!
20 Christ did no wrong thing. But for our sake God put the blame for our wrong ways on Christ. So now God sees us as good, because we are in Christ.
21 missing fehlt/missing
10 This is love! We did not love God, but he loved us. And he sent his Son to be the sacrifice to pay for the wrong things we have done.
1 The law can show only a little about the good things that are coming. It cannot show the good things themselves. People come to worship God. But the law can never make them all right by the same sacrifices that are brought every year.
2 If the law could make people all right, they would stop making sacrifices. The people who come to worship would be made clean for all time, and they would not remember the wrong things they had done.
3 But, by making these sacrifices, they show that they do remember the wrong things they have done.
4 The blood of bulls and goats can never clean wrong things from peoples hearts.
14 If the blood of animals can do that, then the blood of Christ will clean our hearts much better. Christ gave himself to God as the sacrifice. He did this by the Spirit who lives for ever. He was a perfect sacrifice. He will clean our hearts from useless acts of worship. Then we can serve the living God.
15 That is why he is the middle man of a new agreement. He died and paid for the wrong things that were done under the first agreement. Because he is a middle man, those people who are called by God can have what he promised. This will belong to them for ever.
13 God says this is a new agreement, and that makes the first one old. When a thing is old and no good, it is about ready to be thrown away.
27 He also took a cup. He thanked God for it. Then he gave it to the disciples and said, All of you drink from this.
28 This is my blood. My blood is the blood of the new agreement. It is given so that many people will be forgiven for the wrong things they did.
4 We can say this because we trust in God. And we trust in God because of Christ.
5 We are not good enough to think we can do anything ourselves. But God makes us able to do it.
6 God has made a new start with people. He has given us a new way back to God. It is not a written law. The Spirit gives it to us. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life.
22 Also because of this, Jesus makes a better agreement with God for people.
20 In the same way he took the cup after they had eaten. He said, This cup is the new agreement made by my blood. It is given for you.
6 But Christ has been given a much better work, because he is the man who is between God and men in making an agreement. This is a much better agreement. It was made by better promises.
7 If the first agreement had been all right, there would have been no need to make another.