2 Corinthians 3

Living Letters

¹Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some, letters of recommendation to you or from you? ²You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. ^{a 3}You show that you are Christ’s letter, ^b delivered ^c by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God ^d #— #not on tablets of stone ^e but on tablets of human hearts. ^f,^g

Paul’s Competence

⁴Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God. ⁵It is not that we are competent in ^h ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. ^{i 6}He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, ^j not of the letter, ^k but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

New Covenant Ministry

⁷Now if the ministry that brought death, chiseled in letters on stones, came with glory, ^l so that the Israelites were not able to gaze steadily at Moses’s face because of its glory, which was set aside, ⁸how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? ⁹For if the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory. ¹⁰In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it. ¹¹For if what was set aside ^m was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious.

¹²Since, then, we have such a hope, ⁿ we act with great boldness. ¹³We are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face ^o to prevent the Israelites from gazing steadily until the end ^p of the glory of what was being set aside, ¹⁴but their minds were hardened. ^q For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant, ^r the same veil remains; it is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ. ^{s 15}Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, ¹⁶but whenever a person turns ^t to the Lord, the veil is removed. ^{u 17}Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at ^v,^w the glory of the Lord ^x and are being transformed ^y into the same image ^z from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit. ^aa