Book of Common Prayer
Christ our High Priest in Heaven is High Priest of a new agreement
8 1-3 Now to sum up—we have an ideal High Priest such as has been described above. He has taken his seat on the right hand of the heavenly majesty. He is the minister of the sanctuary and of the real tabernacle—that is the one God has set up and not man. Every High Priest is appointed to offer gifts and make sacrifices. It follows, therefore, that in these holy places this man has something that he is offering.
4-5 Now if he were still living on earth he would not be a priest at all, for there are already priests offering the gifts prescribed by the Law. These men are serving what is only a pattern or reproduction of things that exist in Heaven. (Moses, you will remember, when he was going to construct the tabernacle, was cautioned by God in these words: ‘See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain’).
6-7 But Christ had been given a far higher ministry for he mediates a higher agreement, which in turn rests upon higher promises. If the first agreement had proved satisfactory there would have been no need for the second.
8-12 Actually, however, God does show himself dissatisfied for he says to those under the first agreement: ‘Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For 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 mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbour, and none his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more’.
13 The mere fact that God speaks of a new covenant or agreement makes the old one out of date. And when a thing grows weak and out of date it is obviously soon going to be dispensed with altogether.
Jesus, in Cana again, heals in response to faith
43-47 After the two days were over, Jesus left and went away to Galilee. (For Jesus himself testified that a prophet enjoys no honour in his own country.) And on his arrival the people received him with open arms. For they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem during the festival, since they had themselves been present. So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee, the place where he had made the water into wine. At Capernaum there was an official whose son was very ill. When he heard that Jesus had left Judea and had arrived in Galilee, he went off to see him and begged him to come down and heal his son, who was by this time at the point of death.
48 Jesus said to him, “I suppose you will never believe unless you see signs and wonders!”
49 “Sir,” returned the official, “please come down before my boy dies!”
50 “You can go home,” returned Jesus, “your son is alive and well.” And the man believed what Jesus had said to him and went on his way.
51-54 On the journey back his servants met him with the report, “Your son is alive and well.” So he asked them at what time he had begun to recover, and they replied: “The fever left him yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon”. Then the father knew that this must have happened at the very moment when Jesus had said to him, “Your son is alive and well.” And he and his whole household believed in Jesus. This, then, was the second sign that Jesus gave on his return from Judea to Galilee.
The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips copyright © 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission.