And here we come to the very pith of our argument. This high priest of ours is one who has taken his seat in heaven, on the right hand of that throne where God sits in majesty,

ministering, now, in the sanctuary, in that true tabernacle which the Lord, not man, has set up.✻

After all, if it is the very function of a priest to offer gift and sacrifice, he too must needs have an offering to make.✻

Whereas, if he were still on earth, he would be no priest at all; there are priests already, to offer the gifts which the law demands,

men who devote their service to the type and the shadow of what has its true being in heaven. (That is why Moses, when he was building the tabernacle, received the warning, Be sure to make everything in accordance with the pattern that was shewn to thee on the mountain.)✻

As it is, he has been entrusted with a more honourable ministry, dispenser as he is of a nobler covenant, with nobler promises for its sanction.

There would have been no room for this second covenant, if there had been no fault to find with the first.

But God, you see, does find fault; this is what he tells them: Behold, says the Lord, a time is coming when I will ratify a new covenant with the people of Israel, and with the people of Juda.✻

It will not be like the covenant which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand, to rescue them from Egypt; that they should break my covenant, and I (says the Lord) should abandon them.

No, this is the covenant I will grant the people of Israel, the Lord says, when that time comes. I will implant my law in their innermost thoughts, engrave it in their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

There will be no need for neighbour to teach neighbour, or brother to teach brother, the knowledge of the Lord; all will know me, from the highest to the lowest.

I will pardon their wrong-doing; I will not remember their sins any more.

In speaking of a new covenant, he has superannuated the old. And before long the superannuated, the antiquated, must needs disappear.