When You Don't Measure Up

For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said:

“The days are coming, declares the Lord,
   when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
   and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
   I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
   to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
   and I turned away from them,
      declares the Lord.
This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
   after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
   and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
   and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
  or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
   from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will forgive their wickedness
   and will remember their sins no more.”

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.