let us draw near with true hearts, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
When they heard this, they were convicted by their own consciences and began to go away one by one, starting with the older men. So Jesus was left alone, with the woman there before him.
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Therefore, since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the flesh and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
he saved us, not because of any righteous works we had done, but according to his mercy, through the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.
Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of those things, the same sacrifices that they continually offer year after year can never perfect those who draw near to worship.
For when Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll itself and all the people,
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves us—not by removing dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
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 washed us from our sins with his blood