Ministers of a New Covenant

1 Are we beginning to acommend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, bletters of commendation to you or from you?

2 aYou are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;

3 being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, 1acared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of bthe living God, not on ctablets of stone but on dtablets of 2ehuman hearts.

4 Such aconfidence we have through Christ toward God.

5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but aour adequacy is from God,

6 who also made us adequate as aservants of a bnew covenant, not of cthe letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but dthe Spirit gives life.

7 But if the aministry of death, bin letters engraved on stones, came 1with glory, cso that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,

8 how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?

9 For if athe ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the bministry of righteousness abound in glory.

10 For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it.

11 For if that which fades away was 1with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

12 aTherefore having such a hope, bwe use great boldness in our speech,

13 and are not like Moses, awho used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away.

14 But their minds were ahardened; for until this very day at the breading of cthe old covenant the same veil 1remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ.

15 But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart;

16 abut whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where athe Spirit of the Lord is, bthere is liberty.

18 But we all, with unveiled face, abeholding as in a mirror the bglory of the Lord, are being ctransformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from dthe Lord, the Spirit.