Jesus, High Priest of a Better Covenant

1Now this is the main point of the things being said: we have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,

2a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord set up, and not man.

3For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; therefore it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.

4For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law;

5who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses had been warned when he was about to complete the tabernacle, for He says, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.”

6But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises.

7For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no occasion would have been sought for a second.

8For finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

9not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day when I took their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. Because they did not persevere in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.

10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put My laws in their mind, and I will inscribe them upon their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

11And by no means will they teach each one his fellow citizen, and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.

12For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins and their lawless deeds I shall by no means remember anymore.”

13In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. And whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.