Hebrews

A New Covenant

The main point of what has been said is that we have a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the divine Majesty in heaven,

where he serves as minister of the true temple and sanctuary, set up not by any mortal, but by the LORD.

A high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices to God, and Jesus also needs to offer a sacrifice. 

Had he had remained on earth, he would not be a priest, because others offer the gifts according to the law. 

In fact, the rituals performed by those priests are only a shadow and an imitation of the heavenly sanctuary. We know the word of God to Moses regarding the construction of the holy tent. He said: You are to make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.

Now, however, Jesus has a much higher ministry as the mediator of a better covenant based on better promises. 

If everything had been perfect in the first covenant, there would have been no need for a second one. 

Yet God sees faults when he says: The days are coming—it is the word of the Lord—when I will establish a new Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 

It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They did not keep my covenant, and so I have forsaken them, declares the Lord. 

But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel in the days to come: I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 

None of them will need to teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest. 

For I will forgive their sins and will no longer remember their wrongs. 

Here, we are told of a ‘new’ covenant, which means that the first one has become outdated, and what is outdated and aging is soon to fade away.