But Jacob said, "My son cannot go with you; his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. Something might happen to him on the way. I am an old man, and the sorrow you would cause me would kill me."

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "God forbid it, Lord!" he said. "That must never happen to you!"

'I don't want to,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

Peter spoke up and said to Jesus, "I will never leave you, even though all the rest do!"

Peter answered, "I will never say that, even if I have to die with you!" And all the other disciples said the same thing.

Do not allow yourselves to be condemned by anyone who claims to be superior because of special visions and who insists on false humility and the worship of angels. For no reason at all, such people are all puffed up by their human way of thinking

Of course such rules appear to be based on wisdom in their forced worship of angels, and false humility, and severe treatment of the body; but they have no real value in controlling physical passions.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Are you going to wash my feet, Lord?"

"I am telling you the truth," replied Jesus, "that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.

By his power the Lord will judge and purify the nation and wash away the guilt of Jerusalem and the blood that has been shed there.

When you were born, no one cut your umbilical cord or washed you or rubbed you with salt or wrapped you in cloths.

"Then I passed by and saw you squirming in your own blood. You were covered with blood, but I wouldn't let you die.

"As I passed by again, I saw that the time had come for you to fall in love. I covered your naked body with my coat and promised to love you. Yes, I made a marriage covenant with you, and you became mine." This is what the Sovereign LORD says.

I will sprinkle clean water on you and make you clean from all your idols and everything else that has defiled you.

"When that time comes," says the LORD Almighty, "a fountain will be opened to purify the descendants of David and the people of Jerusalem from their sin and idolatry.

And now, why wait any longer? Get up and be baptized and have your sins washed away by praying to him.'

Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

He did this to dedicate the church to God by his word, after making it clean by washing it in water,

he saved us. It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us, through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth and new life by washing us.

Indeed, according to the Law almost everything is purified by blood, and sins are forgiven only if blood is poured out.

Those things, which are copies of the heavenly originals, had to be purified in that way. But the heavenly things themselves require much better sacrifices.

For the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins.

You are not pleased with animals burned whole on the altar or with sacrifices to take away sins.

First he said, "You neither want nor are you pleased with sacrifices and offerings or with animals burned on the altar and the sacrifices to take away sins." He said this even though all these sacrifices are offered according to the Law.

Because Jesus Christ did what God wanted him to do, we are all purified from sin by the offering that he made of his own body once and for all.

and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first to be raised from death and who is also the ruler of the kings of the world. He loves us, and by his sacrificial death he has freed us from our sins

"I don't know, sir. You do," I answered. He said to me, "These are the people who have come safely through the terrible persecution. They have washed their robes and made them white with the blood of the Lamb.