1 The pith of all that we have been saying is this; we do have such a High Priest; and he has taken his seat on the right hand of the throne of Majesty in the heavens,
2 a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; whence it follows that this High Priest also must have some offering to make.
4 Now were he on earth, he would not even be a priest, since there are here those who present the gifts according to the Law -
5 those priests who serve a mere outline and shadow of the heavenly reality, just as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to build the Tabernacle. "See", he says, "that you make everything on the pattern showed you on the mountain."
6 But Jesus has obtained a better ministry, by so much as he is also Mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises.
7 For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second.
8 But finding fault with them, He says. "There are days coming," says the Lord, "When I will establish with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant;
9 Not according tot he covenant which I made with their forefathers, On the day when I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt; For they did not continue in my covenant, And therefore I disregarded them," says the Lord.
10 "For this is the covenant which I will covenant with the house of Israel, After these days," says the Lord; "I will put my laws into their minds, And upon their hearts will I write them; And I will be their God, And they shall be my people;
11 And they shall not teach every man his fellow citizen, And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; For all shall know me, From the least to the greatest of them.
12 For I will have mercy upon their wrong-doings, And their sins I will remember no more."
13 By calling the covenant "new," He has made the first one obsolete; and whatever is becoming obsolete and aged, is near to vanishing.