2 Corinthians 3

LIVING LETTERS

3Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some, letters of recommendation to you or from you? ²You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.^{s 3}You show that you are Christ’s letter,^t delivered^A by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God^u—not on tablets of stone^v but on tablets of human hearts.^Bw

PAUL’S COMPETENCE

⁴Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God. ⁵It is not that we are competent in^C ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.^{x 6}He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant,^y not of the letter,^z but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

NEW COVENANT MINISTRY

⁷Now if the ministry that brought death, chiseled in letters on stones, came with glory,^aa so that the Israelites were not able to gaze steadily at Moses’s face because of its glory, which was set aside, ⁸how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? ⁹For if the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory. ¹⁰In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it. ¹¹For if what was set aside^ab was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious.

¹²Since, then, we have such a hope,^ac we act with great boldness. ¹³We are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face^ad to prevent the Israelites from gazing steadily until the end^D of the glory of what was being set aside, ¹⁴but their minds were hardened.^ae For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant,^af the same veil remains; it is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ.^{ag 15}Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, ¹⁶but whenever a person turns^ah to the Lord, the veil is removed.^{ai 17}Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at^Eaj the glory of the Lord^ak and are being transformed^al into the same image^am from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.^F