Letters to the Churches

so that you will not become sluggish, but will be imitators of those who by their trust and patience are receiving what has been promised.

For when God made his promise to Avraham, he swore an oath to do what he had promised; and since there was no one greater than himself for him to swear by, he swore by himself

and said, “I will certainly bless you, and I will certainly give you many descendants”;

and so, after waiting patiently, Avraham saw the promise fulfilled.

Now people swear oaths by someone greater than themselves, and confirmation by an oath puts an end to all dispute.

Therefore, when God wanted to demonstrate still more convincingly the unchangeable character of his intentions to those who were to receive what he had promised, he added an oath to the promise;

so that through two unchangeable things, in neither of which God could lie, we, who have fled to take a firm hold on the hope set before us, would be strongly encouraged.

We have this hope as a sure and safe anchor for ourselves, a hope that goes right on through to what is inside the parokhet,

where a forerunner has entered on our behalf, namely, Yeshua, who has become a cohen gadol forever, to be compared with Malki-Tzedek.

This Malki-Tzedek, king of Shalem, a cohen of God Ha‘Elyon, met Avraham on his way back from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him;

also Avraham gave him a tenth of everything. Now first of all, by translation of his name, he is “king of righteousness”; and then he is also king of Shalem, which means “king of peace.”

There is no record of his father, mother, ancestry, birth or death; rather, like the Son of God, he continues as a cohen for all time.

Just think how great he was! Even the Patriarch Avraham gave him a tenth of the choicest spoils.

Now the descendants of Levi who became cohanim have a commandment in the Torah to take a tenth of the income of the people, that is, from their own brothers, despite the fact that they too are descended from Avraham.

But Malki-Tzedek, even though he was not descended from Levi, took a tenth from Avraham. Also, he blessed Avraham, the man who received God’s promises;

and it is beyond all dispute that the one who blesses has higher status than the one who receives the blessing.

Moreover, in the case of the cohanim, the tenth is received by men who die; while in the case of Malki-Tzedek, it is received by someone who is testified to be still alive.

One might go even further and say that Levi, who himself receives tenths, paid a tenth through Avraham;

inasmuch as he was still in his ancestor Avraham’s body when Malki-Tzedek met him.

Therefore, if it had been possible to reach the goal through the system of cohanim derived from Levi (since in connection with it, the people were given the Torah), what need would there have been for another, different kind of cohen, the one spoken of as to be compared with Malki-Tzedek and not to be compared with Aharon?

For if the system of cohanim is transformed, there must of necessity occur a transformation of Torah.

The one about whom these things are said belongs to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar;

for everyone knows that our Lord arose out of Y’hudah, and that Moshe said nothing about this tribe when he spoke about cohanim.

It becomes even clearer if a “different kind of cohen,” one like Malki-Tzedek, arises,

one who became a cohen not by virtue of a rule in the Torah concerning physical descent, but by virtue of the power of an indestructible life.