1 - Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? or need we, as do some, epistles of commendation to you or from you?
2 - Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men;
3 - 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.
4 - And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward:
5 - not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God;
6 - 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.
7 - 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:
8 - how shall not rather the ministration of the spirit be with glory?
9 - For if the ministration of condemnation hath glory, much rather doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10 - For verily that which hath been made glorious hath not been made glorious in this respect, by reason of the glory that surpasseth.
11 - For if that which passeth away [was] with glory, much more that which remaineth [is] in glory.
12 - Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness of speech,
13 - 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:
14 - 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.
15 - But unto this day, whensoever Moses is read, a veil lieth upon their heart.
16 - But whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
17 - Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there] is liberty.
18 - 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.