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