Then I will sprinkle pure water on you and make you pure. I will wash away all your filth. I will wash away the filth from those nasty idols and make you pure.”
But at that time, a new spring of water will be opened for David’s family and for the other people living in Jerusalem. That fountain will be to wash away their sins and to make the people pure.
It is God that has made you part of Christ Jesus. Christ has become wisdom for us from God. Christ is the reason we are right with God and have freedom from sin; Christ is the reason we are holy. {\cf2\super [10]}
In the past, some of you were like that. But you were washed clean, you were made holy, {\cf2\super [36]} and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
He died to make the church holy. {\cf2\super [40]} Christ used the telling of the Good News {\cf2\super [41]} to make the church clean by washing it with water.
He gave himself for us. He died to free us from all evil. He died to make us pure people that belong only to him—people that are always wanting to do good things.
The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a cow were sprinkled on those people who were no longer pure \{enough to enter that place of worship\}. That blood and those ashes made those people pure again—but only their bodies.
That water is like baptism {\cf2\super [26]} that now saves you. Baptism is not the washing of dirt from the body. Baptism is asking God for a pure heart. It saves you because Jesus Christ was raised from death.
And loving means living the way he commanded us to live. And God’s command is this: that you live a life of love. You heard this command from the beginning.