Chapter 3

  Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? or need we, as do some, epistles of commendation to you or from you?  

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  Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men;  

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  being made manifest that ye are an 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 tables [that are] hearts of flesh.  

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  And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward:  

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  not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God;  

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  who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.  

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  But if the ministration of death, written, [and] engraven on stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look stedfastly upon the face of Moses for the glory of his face; which [glory] was passing away:  

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  how shall not rather the ministration of the spirit be with glory?  

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  For if the ministration of condemnation hath glory, much rather doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.  

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  For verily that which hath been made glorious hath not been made glorious in this respect, by reason of the glory that surpasseth.  

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  For if that which passeth away [was] with glory, much more that which remaineth [is] in glory.  

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  Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness of speech,  

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  and [are] not as Moses, [who] put a veil upon his face, that the children of Israel should not look stedfastly on the end of that which was passing away:  

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  but their minds were hardened: for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remaineth, it not being revealed [to them] that it is done away in Christ.  

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  But unto this day, whensoever Moses is read, a veil lieth upon their heart.  

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  But whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  

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  Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there] is liberty.  

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  But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.  

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