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A Better Promise

The main point of what we are saying is this: We have the kind of high priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven. He is the minister in the Holy Place, which is the true sanctuary, which the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, and for that reason this priest also needed to have something that he offered.

If this priest were on earth, he would not even be a priest, because there are priests[a] who are designated by the law to offer gifts. They serve at a place that is a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, a place exactly like that about which Moses was told when he was about to complete the tent.[b] For God said, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.”[c]

But now, Jesus has obtained a ministry that is as much superior as the covenant that he mediates is better, because it has been established on the basis of better promises. Indeed, if that first covenant were without fault, there would have been no reason to look for a second. But because God found fault with the people, he said:[d]

Look, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
that I made with their forefathers
at the time when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt.
Because they did not remember my covenant,
I ignored them, says the Lord.
10 This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.

I will put my laws into their mind,
and I will write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 Never again will a man teach his fellow citizen[e]
or his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,”
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful in regard to their unrighteousness,
and I will not remember their sins any longer.[f]

13 When God said “new,” he made the first covenant obsolete, and something that is obsolete and growing old is going to disappear.

Footnotes

  1. Hebrews 8:4 Some witnesses to the text read those.
  2. Hebrews 8:5 Traditionally tabernacle
  3. Hebrews 8:5 Exodus 25:40
  4. Hebrews 8:8 Some witnesses to the text read Since he found fault, he said to them.
  5. Hebrews 8:11 Some witnesses to the text read neighbor.
  6. Hebrews 8:12 Jeremiah 31:31-34