The reading was Hebrews 9:11-14, and part of verse 14 caught my attention: "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God" [ESV].
In the Greek, it's: πόσῳ μᾶλλον τὸ αἷμα τοῦ χριστοῦ, ὃς διὰ πνεύματος αἰωνίου ἑαυτὸν προσήνεγκεν ἄμωμον τῷ θεῷ, καθαριεῖ τὴν συνείδησιν ὑμῶν ἀπὸ νεκρῶν ἔργων εἰς τὸ λατρεύειν θεῷ ζῶντι;
There's a sort of contrast between "from dead works" and "to serve the living God," and this is heightened by the different forms of the modifiers. "Dead" (νεκρῶν) is just an adjective, but "living" (ζῶντι) is a participle, and since participles are verbal adjectives, there's some of the dynamic action of a verb here rather than just the static nature of a plain adjective.
The same distinction is also in the Latin Vulgate ("quanto magis sanguis Christi qui per Spiritum Sanctum semet ipsum obtulit inmaculatum Deo emundabit conscientiam vestram ab operibus mortuis ad serviendum Deo viventi"), my German New Testament ("um wieviel mehr wird dann das Blut Christi, der sich selbst als Opfer ohne Fehl durch den ewigen Geist Gott dargebracht hat, unser Gewissen reinigen von den toten Werken, zu dienen dem lebendigen Gott!"), and my French New Testament ("combien plus le sang de Christ, qui, par un esprit éternel, s'est offert lui-même sans tache à Dieu, purifiera-t-il votre conscience des œuvres mortes, afin que vous serviez la Dieu vivant!").
