The Mediator of a New Covenant

81 Now of the things we are saying this is the chief point: We have such a high priest, who has taken his place at the right hand of God's high seat of glory in heaven, 2 As a servant of the holy things and of the true Tent, which was put up by God, not by man. 3 Now every high priest is given authority to take to God the things which are given and to make offerings; so that it is necessary for this man, like them, to have something for an offering. 4 If he had been on earth he would not have been a priest at all, because there are other priests who make the offerings ordered by the law; 5 Being servants of that which is a copy and an image of the things in heaven, as Moses, when he was about to make the Tent, had special orders from God: for, See, he said, that you make everything like the design which you saw in the mountain.

6 But now his position as priest is higher. because through him God has made a better agreement with man, based on the giving of better things. 7 For if that first agreement had been as good as possible, there would have been no place for a second. 8 For, protesting against them, he says, See, the days are coming when I will make a new agreement with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; 9 Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand, to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; for they did not keep the agreement with me, and I gave them up, says the Lord. 10 For this is the agreement which I will make with the people of Israel after those days: I will put my laws into their minds, writing them in their hearts: and I will be their God, and they will be my people: 11 And there will be no need for every man to be teaching his brother, or his neighbour, saying, This is the knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, great and small. 12 And I will have mercy on their evil-doing, and I will not keep their sins in mind. 13 When he says, A new agreement, he has made the first agreement old. But anything which is getting old and past use will not be seen much longer.

Christ Superior to Moses

31 For this reason, holy brothers, marked out to have a part in heaven, give thought to Jesus the representative and high priest of our faith; 2 Who kept faith with God who gave him his place, even as Moses did in all his house. 3 And it was right for this man to have more honour than Moses, even as the builder of a house has more honour than the house. 4 For every house has a builder; but the builder of all things is God. 5 And Moses certainly kept faith as a servant, in all his house, and as a witness of those things which were to be said later; 6 But Christ as a son, over his house; whose house are we, if we keep our hearts fixed in the glad and certain hope till the end.

A Rest for the People of God

7 And so, as the Holy Spirit says, Today if you let his voice come to your ears, 8 Be not hard of heart, as when you made me angry, on the day of testing in the waste land, 9 When your fathers put me to the test, and saw my works for forty years. 10 So that I was angry with this generation, and I said, Their hearts are in error at all times, and they have no knowledge of my ways; 11 And being angry I made an oath, saying, They may not come into my rest. 12 My brothers, take care that there is not by chance in any one of you an evil heart without belief, turning away from the living God: 13 But give comfort to one another every day as long as it is still Today; so that no one among you may be made hard by the deceit of sin: 14 For if we keep the substance of the faith which we had at the start, even till the end, we have a part with Christ; 15 As it is said, Today if you will let his voice come to your ears, be not hard of heart, as when you made him angry. 16 Who made him angry when his voice came to them? was it not all those who came out of Egypt with Moses? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? was it not with those who did evil, who came to their deaths in the waste land? 18 And to whom did he make an oath that they might not come into his rest? was it not to those who went against his orders? 19 So we see that they were not able to go in because they had no belief.