And against whom was God provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness?

And to whom did he swear they would never enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient?

Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?

So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

But to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

Instead someone testified somewhere: “What is man that you think of him or the son of man that you care for him?

And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my son! Today I have fathered you”? And in another place he says, “I will be his father and he will be my son.”

For though you should in fact be teachers by this time, you need someone to teach you the beginning elements of God’s utterances. You have gone back to needing milk, not solid food.

So if perfection had in fact been possible through the Levitical priesthood – for on that basis the people received the law – what further need would there have been for another priest to arise, said to be in the order of Melchizedek and not in Aaron’s order?