1Now the main point in what is being said is this: we have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
2a minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
3For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer.
4Now if he were on earth, he would not even be a priest, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law;
5who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to complete the tabernacle. For ‘See,’ he says, ‘that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.’
6But as it is, he has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises.
7For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place 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 conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
9not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not remain in my covenant, and so 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: putting my laws into their mind, I will also write them upon their hearts, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.
11And they will not teach, each one his fellow citizen and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.’
13In saying ‘new,’ he has made the first obsolete; and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is near to vanishing away.
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