Ministers of the New Covenant
1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? aDo we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or bletters of recommendation from you? 2You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all. 3You show that you are a letter from Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets, but on tablets of human hearts.
4Such is the confidence that we have in God through Christ. 5Not that we are competent in and of ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God. 6He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its glory (a glory that was fading away), 8will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 9For if cthe ministry of condemnation was glorious, the ministry of righteousness abounds in glory even more. 10For what was once glorious now has no glory in comparison with the glory that surpasses it. 11And if what was fading away came with glory, what remains will be even more glorious.
12Therefore, since we have such a hope, we act with great boldness. 13We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not gaze at the end of what was fading away. 14But their minds were hardened, for to this day the same veil remains unlifted when the old covenant is read, dbecause only in Christ is it taken away. 15But to this day, ewhen Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. 16But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.