8
“It Is a Superior Ministry That Jesus Has Received”
1 Now here is the main point of what we’re saying: Such as has been described is what we do in fact have as our high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majestic One+ in the heavens,
2 a minister who carries out his sacred duties where? In the heavenly sanctuary, that is, the original+ tabernacle, which was set up not by human hands,+ but by the Lord.
3 When any high priest, you see, is appointed, it is for the purpose of presenting sacrifices and offerings to God. That being the case, it follows that this high priest,+ too, must by definition have something to offer.
4 Given these things, if Jesus were now here on the earth,+ he wouldn’t be a priest at all, since there are already priests here+ who are presenting the offerings prescribed by Torah,
5 who carry out their duties in a sanctuary patterned after the heavenly sanctuary as a sketch+ and foreshadow, as indicated in the divine instruction+ that Moses received+ when he was about to build the tabernacle: “Be careful to make everything according to the pattern shown to ˢyou on the mountain.”+
6 As things now stand, however, it is a superior ministry that Jesus has received, inasmuch as it is a superior and more effective covenant, too, of which he is the intermediary, a covenant which has been enacted on promises that are themselves superior.
7 If that first covenant, you see, had been faultless, there would have been no need+ for a second one.
8 Finding fault with his people,+ you see, God+ says,
“Listen! There is coming a time,+ says the LORD,
when I will establish with the people of the northern kingdom of Israel
and with those of the southern kingdom of Judah+
a new covenant.
9 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors+
at the time+ when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt,
because they, for their part,+
stopped abiding by the terms+ of my covenant,
as a result of which I, for mine,
stopped paying attention to them, says the LORD.
10 For this is the kind+ of covenant that I will cut with the nation+ of Israel
after that time,+ says the LORD:
I will put my instructions+ in their minds
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God and they will be my people.
11 And there will be no need at all for people to teach their neighbors
and their countrymen+ with the words,+ ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least important of them to the most important.+
12 For I will be merciful regarding their wicked deeds,
and their sins I will remember no more.”+
13 By referring to this second covenant as “new,”+ God+ has rendered the first one old and worn out. Anything that is wearing out and growing old, moreover, isn’t far from disappearing altogether.+