¹⁰ Nothing was in the Ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Mount Sinai,^[a] where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel when they left Egypt.

⁴ In that room were a gold incense altar and a wooden chest called the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered with gold on all sides. Inside the Ark were a gold jar containing manna, Aaron’s staff that sprouted leaves, and the stone tablets of the covenant.

¹¹ There I have placed the Ark, which contains the covenant that the Lord made with the people of Israel.”

² and I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the ones you smashed. Then place the tablets in the Ark.’

³ “So I made an Ark of acacia wood and cut two stone tablets like the first two. Then I went up the mountain with the tablets in my hand. ⁴ Once again the Lord wrote the Ten Commandments^[a] on the tablets and gave them to me. They were the same words the Lord had spoken to you from the heart of the fire on the day you were assembled at the foot of the mountain. ⁵ Then I turned and came down the mountain and placed the tablets in the Ark of the Covenant, which I had made, just as the Lord commanded me. And the tablets are still there in the Ark.”

⁷ Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people. Again they all responded, “We will do everything the Lord has commanded. We will obey.”

⁸ Then Moses took the blood from the basins and splattered it over the people, declaring, “Look, this blood confirms the covenant the Lord has made with you in giving you these instructions.”

⁵ Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me.

⁶ But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises.

⁷ If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. ⁸ But when God found fault with the people, he said:

¹³ When God speaks of a “new” covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear.

³¹ “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. ³² This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.

³³ “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ³⁴ And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”

¹⁰ All of you—tribal leaders, elders, officers, all the men of Israel—are standing today in the presence of the Lord your God. ¹¹ Your little ones and your wives are with you, as well as the foreigners living among you who chop your wood and carry your water. ¹² You are standing here today to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God. The Lord is making this covenant, including the curses. ¹³ By entering into the covenant today, he will establish you as his people and confirm that he is your God, just as he promised you and as he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁴ “But you are not the only ones with whom I am making this covenant with its curses.

29 ^[a]These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites while they were in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Mount Sinai.^[b]