The second factor for consideration with the author’s [of Hebrews] quotation is the timing. The author presents the dissolution of the first covenant as a future reality (Ellingworth 1993: 419; Gäbel 2006: 280; Karrer 2008: 123–24; Koester 2001: 392–93, though 388; Nanos 2009: 186; contra Cockerill 2012: 370; Moo 2024: 294). This is clearest in the author’s summary comment where the ‘old’ is said to be near disappearance and ‘growing old and aging’ (Moore 2024: 148). This coheres with the quotation itself. The days of the new covenant are coming, not here. Further, the reality described in which everyone knows the Lord is not a present reality. The new covenant surely is in place, but its effects appear delayed. The author says that the old covenant has not yet disappeared. A similar chronology appears elsewhere in Hebrews. In Hebrews 9 (to which we will return), the illustration that the earthly worship space provides is for the ‘present time’ (9.9) related to their current bodily reality (9.10), and in Hebrews 8, the author mentions that if Jesus had been a priest on earth, then he would not have had anything to offer (8.4). Earth is where the Levites minister. This leaves open the possibility for the earthly cult to be operative and for the addressees to participate—depending on to whom and when Hebrews is written (so also Thiessen 2019: 187–88). - Madison N. Pierce, Relapsing, Reverting, or Rejecting? The Purpose of Hebrews and Early Jewish Religion