Paul quoted Jeremiah 31:31-34, where Jehovah promised to “conclude with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant.” Then the apostle wrote: “In his saying ‘a new covenant’ he has made the former one obsolete. Now that which is made obsolete and growing old is near to vanishing away.”​—Hebrews 8:13.

Paul was emphasizing God’s statement through Jeremiah that a new covenant would replace the Law covenant, which was not faultless, for it could not produce a righteous people. (Romans 3:20) In Jeremiah’s day it must have surprised the Jews to hear that the Law covenant was to be replaced by a new covenant that could provide for sins to be completely forgiven.

Yet, once God had specifically foretold the new covenant, the old covenant was in a sense obsolete. Even though God allowed it to remain until the Messiah came and served as Mediator of the new covenant, it could be said about the Law covenant that its days were numbered from Jeremiah’s writing what he did. That is why the verse Heb 8:13 begins: “In his saying ‘a new covenant’ he has made the former one obsolete.” Or, as J. B. Phillips renders it: “The mere fact that God speaks of a new covenant . . . makes the old one out of date.”

The prospective obsolescence that existed from when Jeremiah 31:31-34 was written became a full reality when Jesus’ death brought the Law to an end. So some 28 years later Paul could add in the next verse: “For its part, then, the former covenant used to have ordinances of sacred service and its mundane holy place.”​—Hebrews 9:1.