1Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or surely we do not need, like some, commendatory letters to you or commendatory letters from you?
2You yourselves are our letter, inscribed in our hearts, being known and being read by all men,
3being revealed that you are a letter of the Anointed One, ministered to by us, inscribed not in ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4Now we have such confidence through the Anointed One toward God;
5not that we are sufficient from ourselves to reckon anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God,
6who also has made us competent as 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, engraved in letters in stones, was produced in glory, so that the sons of Israel were not able to look intently into the face of Moses on account of the glory of his face which is fading,
8how surely more will the ministry of the Spirit be in glory?
9For if to the ministry of condemnation was glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory!
10For even that glorified has not been glorified in this respect, on account of the glory surpassing it.
11For if that which is fading away was through glory, much more is that remaining in glory!
12Therefore, having such great hope, we use boldness,
13and not as Moses, who was putting a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel might not look intently into the end of that fading away;
14but their minds were hardened. For until the present day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant, not being lifted, for in the Anointed One it is being removed,
15but unto this day, whenever Moses may be read, a veil lies over their heart;
16but whenever one shall have turned 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.
18Now we ourselves all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.