Begin we again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some, recommendatory epistles unto you or from you?
Ye are our epistle inscribed in our hearts, known and read by all men,
being manifested that ye are Christ’s epistle ministered by us, having been inscribed, not with ink, but [the] Spirit of [the] living God, not on tables of stone, but on fleshy tables of [the] heart.
And such confidence have we through the Christ toward God;
not that we are competent from ourselves to reckon anything as of ourselves, but our competency [is] of God,
who also made us competent [as] servants of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit, for the letter killeth but the spirit quickeneth.
(But if the ministry of death in letter, graven on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently toward the face of Moses for the glory of his face, that was to be done away,
how shall not the ministry of the Spirit rather be in glory?
For if the ministry of condemnation [have] glory, much more doth the ministry of righteousness abound in glory.
For even that which hath been glorified hath not been glorified in this respect on account of the surpassing glory.
For if that to be done away [was] with glory, much more what abideth [is] in glory.
Having then such hope we use much openness of speech:
and not as Moses used to put a veil on his own face, that the sons of Israel should not look stedfastly unto the end of that to be done away.
But their thoughts were darkened; for until this very day the same veil at the reading of the old covenant abideth unlifted, which in Christ is done away.
But unto this day, when Moses is being read, a veil lieth upon their heart.
But whenever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken off.)
Now the Lord is the spirit, but where the Spirit of the Lord [is, there is] liberty;
but we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from [the] Lord [the] Spirit.