Letter to the Hebrews 8

¹ The great point of all that we have said is that we have a high priest of exactly this kind. He has his place at the right of the throne of divine Majesty in the heavens,

² and he is the minister of the sanctuary and of the true Tent of Meeting which the Lord, and not any man, set up.[*a]

³ It is the duty of every high priest to offer gifts and sacrifices, and so this one too must have something to offer.

⁴ In fact, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are others who make the offerings laid down by the Law

⁵ and these only maintain the service of a model or a reflection of the heavenly realities. For Moses, when he had the Tent to build, was warned by God who said: See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.[*b]

⁶ We have seen that he has been given a ministry of a far higher order, and to the same degree it is a better covenant of which he is the mediator, founded on better promises.

⁷ If that first covenant had been without a fault, there would have been no need for a second one to replace it.

⁸ And in fact God does find fault with them; he says: See, the days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when I will establish a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah,

⁹ but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They abandoned that covenant of mine, and so I on my side deserted them. It is the Lord who speaks.

¹⁰ No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive – it is the Lord who speaks. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.

¹¹ There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord’. No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest,

¹² since I will forgive their iniquities and never call their sins to mind.[*c]

¹³ By speaking of a new covenant, he implies that the first one is already old. Now anything old only gets more antiquated until in the end it disappears.