Hebrews 8:13 says that when God spoke of a new covenant, the first one became old. The old agreement of temple, priests and payments was wearing out and ready to vanish. The New Testament says this plainly. The old arrangement is finished, and something new has taken its place.
The letter to the Hebrews is a book of the New Testament. It was sent to believers who had grown up with the temple, the priests, and the animal offerings.
The letter answers by quoting Jeremiah, a prophet who lived about six hundred years before Jesus. Jeremiah spoke of a new covenant. A covenant is an agreement between God and people. In the new one, God says he will write his laws in their hearts, and he will remember their sins no more.
Old and wearing out
Then the letter says what that word "new" means for the first agreement.
In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
Hebrews 8:13 · King James Version
Old. Wearing out. About to be gone. That is how the New Testament itself talks about the old arrangement of altars and payments.
What it means
The temple system is over. The bill was closed. There is no chosen few and no line of priests standing between you and God.
This goes with what Paul said in his letter to Colossae, that the note of debt was nailed to the cross. It also goes with the last words of Jesus in the Gospel of John: "It is finished."
You do not have to keep paying into a system that has already ended. You can read the full teaching free in the Mercy app.
Read the whole chapter: Hebrews 8
1Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;
2A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
3For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.
4For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law:
5Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
6But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
7For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
8For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9Not 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 continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
King James Version