The Superior Ministry of Christ

1 Now the main point of what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,

2 a minister of the holy things, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.

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

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

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

6 But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

The New Covenant

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

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

9 not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

11 And no one shall teach his neighbour, nor his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousnesses, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

13 Now, in that he says, “A new covenant,” he has made the first old. But that which decays and grows old is near vanishing away.