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Ministers of a New Covenant

¹ Are we beginning to ^(C1)commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, ^(C2)letters of commendation to you or from you?^2 (C1)You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all people,³ revealing yourselves, that you are a letter of Christ, ^(F1)(C1)delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of ^(C2)the living God, not on ^(C3)tablets of stone but on ^(C4)tablets of ^(F2)(C5)human hearts.

⁴ Such is the ^(C1)confidence we have toward God through Christ.⁵ Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but ^(C1)our adequacy is from God,⁶ who also made us adequate as ^(C1)servants of a ^(C2)new covenant, not of ^(C3)the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but ^(C4)the Spirit gives life.

⁷ But if the ^(C1)ministry of death, engraved ^(C2)in letters on stones, came ^(F1)with glory ^(C3)so 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 ^(C1)the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ^(C2)ministry of righteousness excel 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 ^(F1)with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

^12 (C1)Therefore, having such a hope, ^(C2)we use great boldness in our speech,¹³ and we are not like Moses, ^(C1)who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not stare at the end of what was fading away.¹⁴ But their minds were ^(C1)hardened; for until this very day at the ^(C2)reading of ^(C3)the old covenant the same veil ^(F1)remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ.¹⁵ But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts;^16 (C1)but whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where ^(C1)the Spirit of the Lord is, ^(C2)there is freedom.¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled faces, ^(C1)looking as in a mirror at the ^(C2)glory of the Lord, are being ^(C3)transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from ^(C4)the Lord, the Spirit.