Hebrews 8

1Here is the heart of what we are saying. Our high priest is one who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2and he serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle, pitched by the Lord and not by a human being. 3The task of every high priest is to present gifts and sacrifices, so our high priest too must have something to present. 4On earth he would not even be a priest, for there are already men who present the gifts the law requires. 5The worship they offer is service in a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. So when Moses was about to set up the tabernacle, God instructed him: “Take care,” he said, “to make everything according to the pattern you were shown on the mountain.” 6As it is, he has been given a far higher ministry, in keeping with the better covenant of which he is mediator, a covenant set in law on better promises.

7Had that first covenant been free of fault, no room would have been sought for a second one. 8For God finds fault with them when he says, “A time is coming, says the Lord, when I will bring about a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 9It will differ from the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They did not hold to my covenant, so I paid them no more attention, says the Lord.” 10“For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel when those days are past, says the Lord: I will place my laws in their understanding and inscribe them on their hearts. I will be God to them, and they will be a people to me.” 11“None of them will need to teach a fellow citizen or a brother or sister, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all of them will know me, from the least to the greatest.” 12“For I will show mercy to their wrongdoing, and their sins I will never again call to mind.” 13By calling the covenant “new,” he has treated the first as old, and what grows old and worn out is close to vanishing.