This verse partly repeats 7.11b. There it is the priesthood which is in focus, not the covenant, but 8.6 has just shown how closely priesthood, covenant, and promises are linked.

If there had been nothing wrong …: the first covenant was shown to be defective because it could not do what it was set up to do (7.11), that is, deal effectively with sin. Revised Standard Version‘s “faultless” does not mean that a covenant could itself have some moral defect. Good News Translation makes it clear that the defect is one of function, that is to say, the covenant did not work.

If there had been nothing wrong with the first covenant may be expressed as “If the first covenant had been able to do everything it should have done” or “If there had been nothing which the first covenant could not do.”

There may, however, be serious problems in rendering verse 7, because of the condition which is contrary to fact. Therefore the structure may require some modification; for example, “There was something wrong with the first covenant, and therefore a second one was necessary” or “Because the first covenant was not able to do all that it should, it was necessary to have a second covenant.”

There would have been no need for a second one gives the meaning of a Greek idiom, literally “look for,” which should not be translated literally. Phillips “no need to look for a second” and Translator’s New Testament “God would not have been seeking a place for a second” (similarly Barclay) try unsuccessfully to do so.

A second one: not until verse 13 does the author call the first covenant old, implying “out of date.” But since in this verse the contrast between first and second is one of temporal sequence, it may be necessary to speak of “former” and “latter.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .