8:1   Now the main point in what we are saying is this: we do have this kind of high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven

8:2   and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord and not by any human.

8:3   For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore, this high priest had to offer something too.

8:4   Now if he were on earth, he would not even be a priest, because other men offer the gifts prescribed by the law.

8:5   They serve in a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of the heavenly one. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain."

8:6   However, Jesus has now obtained a ministry that is as superior to theirs as the covenant he mediates is founded on better promises.

8:7   For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one.

8:8   But God found something wrong with his people when he said, "Look! The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

8:9   It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors at the time when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. Because they did not remain loyal to my covenant, I ignored them, declares the Lord.

8:10   For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

8:11   Never again will everyone teach his neighbor or his brother by saying, 'Know the Lord,' because all of them will know me, from the least important to the most important.

8:12   For I will be merciful regarding their wrong deeds, and I will never again remember their sins."

8:13   In speaking of a "new" covenant, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.