let us draw near with sincerity and unfaltering faith, having had our hearts sprinkled, once for all, from consciences oppressed with sin, and our bodies bathed in pure water.
I indeed am baptizing you in water on a profession of repentance; but He who is coming after me is mightier than I: His sandals I am not worthy to carry for a moment; He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire.
They listened to Him, and then, beginning with the eldest, took their departure, one by one, till all were gone. And Jesus was left behind alone–and the woman in the centre of the court.
And all this describes what some of you were. But now you have had every stain washed off: now you have been set apart as holy: now you have been pronounced free from guilt; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.
Having therefore these promises, beloved friends, let us purify ourselves from all defilement of body and of spirit, and secure perfect holiness through the fear of God.
as righteous men, had done, but as the result of His own mercy He saved us by means of the bath of regeneration and the renewal of our natures by the Holy Spirit,
For, since the Law exhibits only an outline of the blessings to come and not a perfect representation of the things themselves, the priests can never, by repeating the same sacrifices which they continually offer year after year, give complete freedom from sin to those who draw near.
For when Moses had proclaimed to all the people every commandment contained in the Law, he took the blood of the calves and of the goats and with them water, scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
chosen in accordance with the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, with a view to their obedience and to their being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May more and more grace and peace be granted to you.
And, corresponding to that figure, the water of baptism now saves you –not the washing off of material defilement, but the craving of a good conscience after God– through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and from Jesus Christ, the truthful witness, the first of the dead to be born to Life, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins with His own blood,