¹ Every high priest is taken from among human beings and is appointed to act on their behalf in relationships with God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins;

² he can sympathise with those who are ignorant or who have gone astray, because he too is subject to the limitations of weakness.

³ That is why he has to make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.

⁴ No one takes this honour on himself; it needs a call from God, as in Aaron's case.

⁵ And so it was not Christ who gave himself the glory of becoming high priest, but the one who said to him: You are my Son, today I have fathered you,

⁶ and in another text: You are a priest for ever, of the order of Melchizedek.

⁷ During his life on earth, he offered up prayer and entreaty, with loud cries and with tears, to the one who had the power to save him from death, and, winning a hearing by his reverence,

⁸ he learnt obedience, Son though he was, through his sufferings;

⁹ when he had been perfected, he became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation

¹⁰ and was acclaimed by God with the title of high priest of the order of Melchizedek.

¹¹ On this subject we have many things to say, and they are difficult to explain because you have grown so slow at understanding.

¹² Indeed, when you should by this time have become masters, you need someone to teach you all over again the elements of the principles of God's sayings; you have gone back to needing milk, and not solid food.

¹³ Truly, no one who is still living on milk can digest the doctrine of saving justice, being still a baby.

¹⁴ Solid food is for adults with minds trained by practice to distinguish between good and bad.