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8 God^* finds fault with them when he says:
‘The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
   when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
   and with the house of Judah;
⁹ not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors,
   on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt;
for they did not continue in my covenant,
   and so I had no concern for them, says the Lord.
¹⁰ This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
   after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds,
   and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
   and they shall be my people.
¹¹ And they shall not teach one another
   or say to each other, “Know the Lord”,
for they shall all know me,
   from the least of them to the greatest.
¹² For I will be merciful towards their iniquities,
   and I will remember their sins no more.’
¹³In speaking of ‘a new covenant’, he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.

The Earthly and the Heavenly Sanctuaries

9Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. ²For a tent^* was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the Presence;^* this is called the Holy Place. ³Behind the second curtain was a tent^* called the Holy of Holies. ⁴In it stood the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which there were a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; ⁵above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy-seat.^* Of these things we cannot speak now in detail.

6 Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent^* to carry out their ritual duties; ⁷but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year, and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people. ⁸By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent^* is still standing. ⁹This is a symbol^* of the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper, ¹⁰but deal only with food and drink and various baptisms, regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things right.