1
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?
2
You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
3
It is clear that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4
Such confidence before God is ours through Christ.
5
Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God.
6
And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The Glory of the New Covenant
(Exodus 34:10–35)
7
Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory,
8
will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?
9
For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness!
10
Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory that surpasses it.
11
For if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which endures!
12
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.
13
We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was fading away.
14
But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed.
15
And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.
16
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
18
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image with intensifying glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.