Hebrews 9:14

9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our ¹  consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

Hebrews 10:9-12

10:9 then he says, “Here I am: I have come to do your will.” ²  He does away with ³  the first to establish the second. 10:10 By his will ⁴  we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 10:11 And every priest stands day after day ⁵  serving and offering the same sacrifices again and again – sacrifices that can never take away sins. 10:12 But when this priest ⁶  had offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down at the right hand ⁷  of God,

John 6:51

6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread ⁸  that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Ephesians 5:2

5:2 and live ⁹  in love, just as Christ also loved us ¹⁰  and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering ¹¹  to God.

Titus 2:14

2:14 He ¹²  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ¹³  who are eager to do good. ¹⁴ 

¹ 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.

² tc The majority of mss, especially the later ones (א² 0278^vid 1739 Ï lat), have ὁ θεός (Jo qeo", “God”) at this point, while most of the earliest and best witnesses lack such an explicit addressee (so Ì⁴⁶ א* A C D K P Ψ 33 1175 1881 2464 al). The longer reading is a palpable corruption, apparently motivated in part by the wording of Ps 40:8 (39:9 LXX) and by the word order of this same verse as quoted in Heb 10:7.

³ tn Or “abolishes.”

⁴ tn Grk “by which will.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

⁵ tn Or “daily,” “every day.”

⁶ tn Grk “this one.” This pronoun refers to Jesus, but “this priest” was used in the translation to make the contrast between the Jewish priests in v. 11 and Jesus as a priest clearer in English.

⁷ sn An allusion to Ps 110:1.

⁸ tn Grk “And the bread.”

⁹ tn Grk “walk.” The NT writers often used the verb “walk” (περιπατέω, peripatew) to refer to ethical conduct (cf. Rom 8:4; Gal 5:16; Col 4:5).

¹⁰ tc A number of important witnesses have ὑμᾶς (Jumas, “you”; e.g., א* A B P 0159 81 1175 al it co as well as several fathers). Other, equally important witnesses read ἡμᾶς (Jhmas, “us”; Ì⁴⁶ א² D F G Ψ 0278 33 1739 1881 al lat sy). It is possible that ἡμᾶς was accidentally introduced via homoioarcton with the previous word (ἠγάπησεν, hgaphsen). On the other hand, ὑμᾶς may have been motivated by the preceding ὑμῖν (Jumin) in 4:32 and second person verbs in 5:1, 2. Further, the flow of argument seems to require the first person pronoun. A decision is difficult to make, but the first person pronoun has a slightly greater probability of being original.

¹¹ tn Grk “an offering and sacrifice to God as a smell of fragrance.” The first expression, προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν (prosforan kai qusian), is probably a hendiadys and has been translated such that “sacrificial” modifies “offering.” The second expression, εἰς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας (ei" osmhn euwdia", “as a smell of fragrance”) has been translated as “a fragrant offering”; see BDAG 728-29 s.v. ὀσμή 2. Putting these two together in a clear fashion in English yields the translation: “a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.”

¹² tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

¹³ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

¹⁴ tn Grk “for good works.”