And against whom was God ¹  provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? ² 

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

Endure your suffering ¹  as discipline; ²  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 ¹  I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” ² 

But to which of the angels ¹  has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? ² 

Instead someone testified somewhere: “What is man that you think of him ¹  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 ¹  ever say, “You are my son! Today I have fathered you”? ²  And in another place ³  he says, ⁴  “I will be his father and he will be my son.” ⁵ 

For though you should in fact be teachers by this time, ¹  you need someone to teach you the beginning elements of God’s utterances. ²  You have gone back to needing ³  milk, not ⁴  solid food.

So if perfection had in fact been possible through the Levitical priesthood – for on that basis ¹  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?