1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, like some, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2. You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men,
3. it having been made plain that you are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, not having been written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tablets of stone, but in fleshly tablets of the heart.
4. And we have such trust through Christ toward God,
5. not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God;
6. who also has made us able ministers of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit makes alive.
7. But if the ministry of death, having been engraved in letters in stone was with glory (so that the sons of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses because of the glory of his face), which was being done away;
8. shall not the ministry of the Spirit be with more glory?
9. For if the ministry of condemnation is glorious, much more does the ministry of righteousness exceed in glory.
10. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels.
11. For if that which has been done away was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious.
12. Then since we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech.
13. And we are not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of the thing being done away.
14. (But their thoughts were blinded; for until the present the same veil remains on the reading of the old covenant, not taken away.) But this veil has been done away in Christ.
15. But until this day, when Moses is read, the veil is on their heart.
16. But whenever it turns to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
17. And the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18. But we all, with our face having been unveiled, having beheld the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord Spirit.