1 Here is the point of what we are saying: We have a high priest like we have been telling you about. That high priest now sits on the right side of God’s throne in heaven. 2 Our high priest serves in the Most Holy Place. He serves in the true place of worship that was made by God, not by people. 3 Every high priest has the work of offering gifts and sacrifices to God. So our high priest must also offer something to God. 4 If our high priest were now living on earth, then he would not be a priest. I say this because there are already priests here who follow the law by offering gifts to God. 5 The work that these priests do is really only a copy and a shadow of the things that are in heaven. That is why God warned Moses when Moses was ready to build the Holy Tent: “Be sure to make everything exactly like the pattern I showed you on the mountain.” 6 But the work that has been given to Jesus is much greater than the work that was given to those priests. In the same way, the new agreement that Jesus brought from God to his people is much greater than the old one. And the new agreement is based on promises of better things. 7 If there was nothing wrong with the first agreement, then there would be no need for a second agreement. 8 But God found something wrong with the people. God said: “The time is coming, says the Lord, when I will give a new agreement to the people of Israel and to the people of Judah. 9 It will not be like the agreement that I gave to their fathers. That is the agreement I gave when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They did not continue following the agreement I gave them, and I turned away from them, says the Lord. 10 This is the new agreement I will give the people of Israel. I will give this agreement in the future, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write my laws on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11 Never again will a person have to teach his brother or God’s other people. He will not need to tell them to know the Lord. Why? Because all people—the greatest people and the least important people— will know me. 12 And I will forgive the wrong things they do against me, and I will not remember their sins.” 13 God called this a new agreement, so God has made the first agreement old. And anything that is old and useless is ready to disappear.
