let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you (not as the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a good conscience towards God) through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
So then, dear friends, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every impurity of the flesh and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
he saved us #– #not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy #– #through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
For when every command had been proclaimed by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll itself and all the people,
‘I baptise you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove his sandals. He himself will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God because they will return to me with all their heart.
Do this to them for their purification: sprinkle them with the purification water. Make them shave their entire bodies and wash their clothes, and so purify themselves.
He will then sprinkle the blood seven times on the one who is to be cleansed from the skin disease. He is to pronounce him clean and release the live bird over the open countryside.
The Lord said: These people approach me with their speeches to honour me with lip-service, yet their hearts are far from me, and human rules direct their worship of me.
‘As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands the intention of every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you abandon him, he will reject you for ever.
Jacob’s leader will be one of them; his ruler will issue from him. I will invite him to me, and he will approach me, for who would otherwise risk his life to approach me? This is the Lord’s declaration.
so he will sprinkle many nations. , Kings will shut their mouths because of him, for they will see what had not been told them, and they will understand what they had not heard.
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has set us free from our sins by his blood,
I know, my God, that you test the heart and that you are pleased with what is right. I have willingly given all these things with an upright heart, and now I have seen your people who are present here giving joyfully and willingly to you.
Abijam walked in all the sins his father before him had committed, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God as his ancestor David had been.
He is to wear a holy linen tunic, and linen undergarments are to be on his body. He is to tie a linen sash round him and wrap his head with a linen turban. These are holy garments; he must bathe his body with water before he wears them.
Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshippers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year.