The New Priestly Service
1 Nowthisisthe main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest,who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
2 a Minister ofthe sanctuary and ofthe true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
3 Forevery high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Thereforeitisnecessary that this One also have something to offer.
4 For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law;
5 who servethe copy andshadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said,“Seethatyou make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
6 But nowHe has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of abetter covenant, which was established on better promises.
A New Covenant
7 For if thatfirstcovenanthad been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.
8 Because finding fault with them, He says:“Behold, the days are coming, says theLord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—
9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says theLord.
10 For thisisthe covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says theLord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; andI will be their God, and they shall be My people.
11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know theLord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.
12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
13 In that He says, “A newcovenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.