Chapter 8

¹Now the main point in what I am saying is this: We have such a high priest as this, and he has taken his seat in heaven at the right hand of God’s Majesty, ²to officiate as priest in the sanctuary and in that true tent of worship which not man but the Lord himself set up. ³But every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, and so this high priest also must have some sacrifice to offer. ⁴Further, if he were still on earth, he would not be a priest at all, for there are priests enough provided to offer the gifts the Law prescribes— ⁵though the service they engage in is only a shadow and imitation of that in heaven. For when Moses was going to make the tent of worship he was warned, “Be sure to make it all just like the pattern you were shown on the mountain.” ⁶But, as it is, the priestly service to which Christ has been appointed is as much better than the old as the agreement established by him and the promises on which it is based are superior to the former ones. ⁷For if that first agreement had been perfect, there would have been no occasion for a second one. ⁸But in his dissatisfaction with them he says,

“ ‘See! the time is coming,’ says the Lord,

‘When I will conclude a new agreement with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

⁹Not like the one that I made with their forefathers,

On the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out from the land of Egypt,

For they would not abide by their agreement with me,

So I paid no attention to them,’ says the Lord.

¹⁰‘For this is the agreement that I will make with the house of Israel,

In those later days,’ says the Lord;

‘I will put my laws into their minds,

And write them on their hearts, And they will have me for their God,

And I will have them for my people.

¹¹And they will not have to teach their townsmen and their brothers to know the Lord,

For they will all know me,

From the lowest to the highest.

¹²For I will be merciful to their misdeeds,

And I will no longer remember their sins.’ ”

¹³Now when he speaks of a new agreement, he is treating the first one as obsolete; but whatever is obsolete and antiquated is almost ready to disappear.