¹ Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Unless we need, as some men, commendatory letters to you or commendatory from you?

² Ye are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men,

³ being seen that ye are a letter of Christ, administered by us, written not in ink, but in the Spirit of the living God, not in stony tablets, but in fleshly tablets, in hearts.

⁴ And we have such confidence toward God through Christ,

⁵ not that we are sufficient of ourselves to reckon anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,

⁶ who also made us qualified helpers of a new covenant, not of a document, but of a Spirit, for the document kills but the Spirit makes alive.

⁷ But if the administration of death in writings engraved on stones occurred in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not gaze upon the face of Moses because of the fading glory of his countenance,

⁸ how will the administration of the Spirit not be more in glory?

⁹ For if the administration of condemnation has glory, the administration of righteousness excels much more in glory.

¹⁰ For also that which has been glorified, has not been glorified in this regard, because of the glory that transcends.

¹¹ For if that which is abolished was through glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

¹² Having therefore such a hope we use great boldness,

¹³ and are not as Moses. He put a veil over his face in order for the sons of Israel not to gaze on the end of the fading.

¹⁴ But their minds were hardened, for to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old testament, not being uncovered, which thing is abolished in Christ.

¹⁵ But to this day when Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart.

¹⁶ But whenever it turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

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 seeing by reflection the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same likeness from glory to glory, just as from the Spirit of the Lord.