Hebrews 10:4-10

10:4 For the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins. ¹  10:5 So when he came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.

10:6 “Whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you took no delight in.

10:7 “Then I said, ‘Here I am: ²  I have come – it is written of me in the scroll of the book – to do your will, O God.’” ³ 

10:8 When he says above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you did not desire nor did you take delight in them” ⁴  (which are offered according to the law), 10:9 then he says, “Here I am: I have come to do your will.” ⁵  He does away with ⁶  the first to establish the second. 10:10 By his will ⁷  we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

[10:4]  ¹ tn Grk “for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

[10:7]  ² tn Grk “behold,” but this construction often means “here is/there is” (cf. BDAG 468 s.v. ἰδού 2).

[10:7]  ³ sn A quotation from Ps 40:6-8 (LXX). The phrase a body you prepared for me (in v. 5) is apparently an interpretive expansion of the HT reading “ears you have dug out for me.”

[10:8]  ⁴ sn Various phrases from the quotation of Ps 40:6 in Heb 10:5-6 are repeated in Heb 10:8.

[10:9]  ⁵ 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.

[10:9]  ⁶ tn Or “abolishes.”

[10:10]  ⁷ tn Grk “by which will.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.