001 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
002 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
003 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.
004 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
005 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
006 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
007 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
008 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
009 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
010 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
011 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
012 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
013 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
014 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ.
015 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
016 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
017 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
018 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.