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¹ Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some [others], epistles of commendation to you, or [letters] of commendation from you.² Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men:³ [Forasmuch as ye are] manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on fleshly tables of the heart.⁴ And such trust we have through Christ toward God.⁵ Not that we are sufficient by ourselves to think any thing as from ourselves; but our sufficiency [is] from God;

⁶ Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.⁷ But if the ministration of death, written [and] engraven on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which [glory] was to be done away;⁸ How shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?⁹ For if the ministration of condemnation [was] glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.¹⁰ For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.¹¹ For if that which was done away [was] glorious, much more that which remaineth [is] glorious.

¹² Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:¹³ And not as Moses, [who] put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:¹⁴ But their minds were blinded: for until this day the same vail remaineth untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which [vail] is done away in Christ.¹⁵ But even to this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.¹⁶ Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.¹⁷ Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord [is], there [is] liberty.¹⁸ But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.