16. When there is a will, it must be proven that the one who wrote that will is dead.
17. A will means nothing while the person is alive; it can be used only after the person dies.
18. This is why even the first agreement could not begin without blood to show death.
19. First, Moses told all the people every command in the law. Next he took the blood of calves and mixed it with water. Then he used red wool and a branch of the hyssop plant to sprinkle it on the book of the law and on all the people.
20. He said, “This is the blood that begins the Agreement that God commanded you to obey.”
21. In the same way, Moses sprinkled the blood on the Holy Tent and over all the things used in worship.
22. The law says that almost everything must be made clean by blood, and sins cannot be forgiven without blood to show death.
23. So the copies of the real things in heaven had to be made clean by animal sacrifices. But the real things in heaven need much better sacrifices.
24. Christ did not go into the Most Holy Place made by humans, which is only a copy of the real one. He went into heaven itself and is there now before God to help us.
25. The high priest enters the Most Holy Place once every year with blood that is not his own. But Christ did not offer himself many times.
26. Then he would have had to suffer many times since the world was made. But Christ came only once and for all time at just the right time to take away all sin by sacrificing himself.
27. Just as everyone must die once and then be judged,