Hebrews 8 ASV
Summary: The author sums up his argument: believers have a high priest who serves in the true, heavenly sanctuary rather than an earthly copy, and who has obtained a ministry as much more excellent as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is established on better promises. Quoting Jeremiah 31 at length, he shows that God himself promised a new covenant, unlike the one made with Israel at the exodus which they broke, one in which God's laws would be written on hearts and minds rather than external tablets, with sins remembered no more. By speaking of a new covenant, the author concludes, God has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
1Now in the things which we are saying the chief point is this: We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
2a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
3For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is necessary that this high priest also have somewhat to offer.
4Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are those who offer the gifts according to the law;
5who serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount.
6But now hath he obtained a ministry the more excellent, by so much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises.
7For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second.
8For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, That I will make 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 In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt; For they continued not in my covenant, And I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, And on their heart also will I write them: And I will be to them a God, And they shall be to me a people:
11And 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.
12For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And their sins will I remember no more.
13In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. But that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away.
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