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Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. ²He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; ³and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. ⁴And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

⁵ So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him,

“You are my Son,

today I have begotten you”;

⁶ as he says also in another place,

“You are a priest forever,

according to the order of Melchizedek.”

⁷ In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; ⁹and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, ¹⁰having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Warning against Falling Away

¹¹ About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. ¹²For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; ¹³for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. ¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

13. For every one who uses milk, or, who partakes of milk, etc. He means those who from tenderness or weakness as yet refuse solid doctrine; for otherwise he who is grown up is not averse to milk. But he reproves here an infancy in understanding, such as constrains God even to prattle with us. He then says, that babes are not fit to receive the word of righteousness, understanding by righteousness the perfection of which he will presently speak. ⁹³⁹³ This is the view of Grotius and others, but some regard “the word of righteousness” as a paraphrasis for the Gospel; and Stuart renders it, “the word of salvation.” Dr. Owen says that the Gospel is called “the word of righteousness,” because it reveals the righteousness of God, Romans 1:17. It may also be so called, because it reveals and contains the truth, the full truth, partly revealed previously. The word “righteousness” has this meaning both in the Old and New Testaments. See Psalm 3:4; Isaiah 45:19, 23; and Matthew 21:23, 2 Corinthians 11:15. “The ministers of righteousness” in the last text are opposed to false ministers. — Ed. For the Apostle does not here, as I think, refer to the question, how we are justified before God, but takes the word in a simpler sense, as denoting that completeness of knowledge which leads to perfection, which office Paul ascribes to the Gospel in his epistle to the Colossians, 1:28; as though he had said, that those who indulge themselves in their ignorance preclude themselves from a real knowledge of Christ, and that the doctrine of the Gospel is unfruitful in them, because they never reach the goal, nor come even near it.

⁹³ This is the view of Grotius and others, but some regard “the word of righteousness” as a paraphrasis for the Gospel; and Stuart renders it, “the word of salvation.” Dr. Owen says that the Gospel is called “the word of righteousness,” because it reveals the righteousness of God, Romans 1:17. It may also be so called, because it reveals and contains the truth, the full truth, partly revealed previously. The word “righteousness” has this meaning both in the Old and New Testaments. See Psalm 3:4; Isaiah 45:19, 23; and Matthew 21:23, 2 Corinthians 11:15. “The ministers of righteousness” in the last text are opposed to false ministers. — Ed.