Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech: Hebrews | Page 4

others, you really need some one to teach you over again the very rudiments of the truths of God, and you have come to require milk instead of solid food. 005:013 By people who live on milk I mean those who are imperfectly acquainted with the teaching concerning righteousness. 005:014 Such persons are mere babes. But solid food is for adults-- that is, for those who through constant practice have their spiritual faculties carefully trained to distinguish good from evil. 006:001 Therefore leaving elementary instruction about the Christ, let us advance to mature manhood and not be continually re-laying a foundation of repentance from lifeless works and of faith in God, 006:002 or of teaching about ceremonial washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgement. 006:003 And advance we will, if God permits us to do so. 006:004 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once for all been enlightened, and have tasted the sweetness of the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, 006:005 and have realized how good the word of God is and how mighty are the powers of the coming Age, and then fell away-- 006:006 it is impossible, I say, to keep bringing them back to a new repentance, for, to their own undoing, they are repeatedly crucifying the Son of God afresh and exposing Him to open shame. 006:007 For land which has drunk in the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sakes, indeed, it is tilled, has a share in God's blessing. 006:008 But if it only yields a mass of thorns and briers, it is considered worthless, and is in danger of being cursed, and in the end will be destroyed by fire. 006:009 But we, even while we speak in this tone, have a happier conviction concerning you, my dearly-loved friends-- a conviction of things which point towards salvation. 006:010 For God is not unjust so that He is unmindful of your labour and of the love which you have manifested towards Himself in having rendered services to His people and in still rendering them. 006:011 But we long for each of you to continue to manifest the same earnestness, with a view to your enjoying fulness of hope to the very End; 006:012 so that you may not become half-hearted, but be imitators of those who through faith and patient endurance are now heirs to the promises. 006:013 For when God gave the promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself, 006:014 saying, "Assuredly I will bless you and bless you, I will increase you and increase you." 006:015 And so, as the result of patient waiting, our forefather obtained what God had promised. 006:016 For men swear by what is greater than themselves; and with them an oath in confirmation of a statement always puts an end to a dispute. 006:017 In the same way, since it was God's desire to display more convincingly to the heirs of the promise how unchangeable His purpose was, 006:018 He added an oath, in order that, through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for Him to prove false, we may possess mighty encouragement--we who, for safety, have hastened to lay hold of the hope set before us. 006:019 That hope we have as an anchor of the soul--an anchor that can neither break nor drag. It passes in behind the veil, 006:020 where Jesus has entered as a forerunner on our behalf, having become, like Melchizedek, a High Priest for ever. 007:001 For this man, Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of the Most High God--he who when Abraham was returning after defeating the kings met him and pronounced a blessing on him-- 007:002 to whom also Abraham presented a tenth part of all-- being first, as his name signifies, King of righteousness, and secondly King of Salem, that is, King of peace: 007:003 with no father or mother, and no record of ancestry: having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made a type of the Son of God--this man Melchizedek remains a priest for ever. 007:004 Now think how great this priest-king must have been to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth part of the best of the spoil. 007:005 And those of the descendants of Levi who receive the priesthood are authorized by the Law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brethren, though these have sprung from Abraham. 007:006 But, in this instance, one who does not trace his origin from them takes tithes from Abraham, and pronounces a blessing on him to whom the promises belong. 007:007