A Better Promise

1 What I mean is we have a high priest who sits at the right side+ of God's great throne in heaven. 2He also serves as the priest in the most holy place+ inside the real tent there in heaven. This tent of worship was set up by the Lord, not by humans.

3Since all priests must offer gifts and sacrifices, Christ also needed to have something to offer. 4If he were here on earth, he would not be a priest at all, because here the Law appoints other priests to offer sacrifices. 5 But the tent where they serve is just a copy and a shadow of the real one in heaven. Before Moses made the tent, he was told, “Be sure to make it exactly like the pattern you were shown on the mountain!” 6Now Christ has been appointed to serve as a priest in a much better way, and he has given us much assurance of a better agreement.

7If the first agreement with God had been all right, there would not have been any need for another one. 8 But the Lord found fault with it and said,

“I tell you the time will come,

when I will make

a new agreement

with the people of Israel

and the people of Judah.

9It won't be like the agreement

that I made

with their ancestors,

when I took them by the hand

and led them out of Egypt.

They broke their agreement

with me,

and I stopped caring

about them!

10“But now I tell the people

of Israel

this is my new agreement:

‘The time will come

when I, the Lord,

will write my laws

on their minds and hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be

my people.

11Not one of them

will have to teach another

to know me, their Lord.’

“All of them will know me,

no matter who they are.

12I will treat them with kindness,

even though they are wicked.

I will forget their sins.”

13When the Lord talks about a new agreement, he means that the first one is out of date. And anything that is old and useless will soon disappear.