1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? * Do ¦ Or do CT SCRDo we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or † letters of recommendation ¦ — CTletters of recommendation from you? 2 You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets, but on tablets of human hearts.

4 Such is the confidence that we have in God through Christ. 5 Not that we are competent in and of ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent to be 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, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its glory (a glory that was fading away), 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 9 For if ‡ the ministry of condemnation was glorious ¦ there was glory in the ministry of condemnation NA SBL THthe ministry of condemnation was glorious, the ministry of righteousness abounds in glory even more. 10 For what was once glorious now has no glory in comparison with the glory that surpasses it. 11 And if what was fading away came with glory, what remains will be even more glorious.

12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we act with great boldness. 13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not gaze at the end of what was fading away. 14 But their minds were hardened, for to this day the same veil remains unlifted when the old covenant is § read. Only in Christ is this veil ¦ read, because only in Christ is it ANT CT HF PCKread. Only in Christ is this veil taken away. 15 But to this day, * when ¦ whenever CTwhen Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But whenever someone turns 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, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.