Ephesians 5:26-27

5:26 to sanctify her by cleansing her ¹  with the washing of the water by the word, 5:27 so that he ²  may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. ³ 

Hebrews 9:13-14

9:13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkled on those who are defiled consecrated them and provided ritual purity, ⁴  9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our ⁵  consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

Hebrews 9:1

The Arrangement and Ritual of the Earthly Sanctuary

9:1 Now the first covenant, ⁶  in fact, had regulations for worship and its earthly sanctuary.

Hebrews 1:7

1:7 And he says ⁷  of the angels, “He makes ⁸  his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” ⁹ 

Hebrews 1:9

1:9 You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

So God, your God, has anointed you over your companions ¹⁰  with the oil of rejoicing.” ¹¹ 

¹ tn The direct object “her” is implied, but not found in the Greek text. It has been supplied in the English translation to clarify the sense of the passage.

² tn The use of the pronoun αὐτός (autos) is intensive and focuses attention on Christ as the one who has made the church glorious.

³ tn Grk “but in order that it may be holy and blameless.”

⁴ tn Grk “for the purifying of the flesh.” The “flesh” here is symbolic of outward or ritual purity in contrast to inner purity, that of the conscience (cf. Heb 9:9).

⁵ tc The reading adopted by the translation is attested by many authorities (A D* K P 365 1739* al). But many others (א D² 0278 33 1739^c 1881 Ï lat sa) read “your” instead of “our.” The diversity of evidence makes this a difficult case to decide from external evidence alone. The first and second person pronouns differ by only one letter in Greek, as in English, also making this problem difficult to decide based on internal evidence and transcriptional probability. In the context, the author’s description of sacrificial activities seems to invite the reader to compare his own possible participation in OT liturgy as over against the completed work of Christ, so the second person pronoun “your” might make more sense. On the other hand, TCGNT 599 argues that “our” is preferable because the author of Hebrews uses direct address (i.e., the second person) only in the hortatory sections. What is more, the author seems to prefer the first person in explanatory remarks or when giving the logical grounds for an assertion (cf. Heb 4:15; 7:14). It is hard to reach a definitive conclusion in this case, but the data lean slightly in favor of the first person pronoun.

⁶ tn Grk “the first” (referring to the covenant described in Heb 8:7, 13). In the translation the referent (covenant) has been specified for clarity.

⁷ sn The Greek correlative conjunctions μέν and δέ (men and de) emphasize the contrastive parallelism of vs. 7 (what God says about the angels) over against vv. 8-9 and vv. 10-12 (what God says about the son).

⁸ tn Grk “He who makes.”

⁹ sn A quotation from Ps 104:4.

¹⁰ sn God…has anointed you over your companions. God’s anointing gives the son a superior position and authority over his fellows.

¹¹ sn A quotation from Ps 45:6-7.