1. The main point of what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,
2. a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up.
3. Now every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus the necessity for this one also to have something to offer.
4. If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law.
5. They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle. For he says, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
6. Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.
7. For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second one.
8. But he finds fault with them and says:“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord,when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
9. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathersthe day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt;for they did not stand by my covenantand I ignored them, says the Lord.
10. But this is the covenant I will establish with the house of Israelafter those days, says the Lord:I will put my laws in their mindsand I will write them upon their hearts.I will be their God,and they shall be my people.
11. And they shall not teach, each one his fellow citizenand kinsman, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’for all shall know me,from least to greatest.
12. For I will forgive their evildoingand remember their sins no more.”
13. When he speaks of a “new” covenant, he declares the first one obsolete. And what has become obsolete and has grown old is close to disappearing.