⚓WEB · Hebrews 8:12
What does Hebrews 8:12 mean?
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.”"
— Hebrews 8:12 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t 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 into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
They will not teach every man his fellow citizen, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know me, from their least to their greatest.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.”
In that he says, “A new covenant”, he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away.
Explanation
Hebrews 8:12 records God's promise concerning the new covenant, and it says, in plain terms, that God will show mercy toward human wrongdoing and will no longer hold sins and lawless acts against his people. The verse doesn't merely describe forgiveness as overlooking a debt for a time; it describes a deliberate choice by God to no longer remember, meaning he will not bring up these sins again to condemn or punish. This is the climax of a promise, not a passing comment — the finality and completeness of divine forgiveness is the whole point.
This verse comes from a quotation. The author of Hebrews is citing Jeremiah 31:31-34, an Old Testament prophecy given to Israel and Judah during a time of national judgment and exile, when the people had broken the old covenant made at Sinai. Jeremiah promised that God would one day make a "new covenant" — one written on hearts rather than on stone tablets, marked by internal transformation rather than external law-keeping alone, and sealed by God's complete forgiveness. The author of Hebrews, writing to Jewish Christians who were tempted to abandon faith in Christ and return to the old sacrificial system, quotes this prophecy to prove that Jesus is the fulfillment of what Jeremiah foresaw. The whole argument of Hebrews 8-10 is that Jesus, as the great high priest, has inaugurated this promised new covenant through his own sacrifice, making the old covenant obsolete.
Theologically, this verse teaches that forgiveness under the new cov
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