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 You are our letter written in our innermost minds, known and read by all people,
3 visibly shown to be the letter of Christ administered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tablets of stone, but in fleshy tablets of the innermost mind.
4 And this is the kind of trust we have toward God through Christ.
5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves think we are anything in ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 Who also has made us able servants of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 But if the administration of death, written and engraved in stones, was glorious, so that the mature son of Israel could not steadfastly look at the face of Moses for the glory of his face, which glory was to come to an end,
8 how shall not the administration of the Spirit be even more glorious?
9 For if the administration of condemnation is glory, much more does the administration 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 excels.
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remains is glorious.
12 Seeing then that we have such divinely inspired expectation, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, who put a veil over his face, that the sons 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 veil remains, not taken away, in the knowing of the old covenant. This veil loses its power and influence in Christ.
15 But even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil is laid over their innermost mind,
16 but when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil 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 unveiled faces, seeing as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are transfigured into the same image from glory into glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord. *