| 1 | Do we begin again to commend ourselves ? or need we , as some [others], epistles of commendation to you , or [letters] of commendation from you ? |
| 2 | Ye are our epistle written in our hearts , known and read of all men : |
| 3 | [Forasmuch as ye are] manifestly declared to be the 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 fleshy tables of the heart . |
| 4 | And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward : |
| 5 | Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency [is] of God ; |
| 6 | Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament ; 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 in stones , was glorious , so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance ; which [glory] was to be done away : |
| 8 | How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious ? |
| 9 | For if the ministration of condemnation [be] glory , much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory . |
| 10 | For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect , by reason of the glory that excelleth . |
| 11 | For if that which is done away [was] glorious , much more that which remaineth [is] glorious . |
| 12 | Seeing then that we have such hope , we use great plainness of speech : |
| 13 | And not as Moses , [which] put a vail over his face , that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished : |
| 14 | But their minds were blinded : for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament ; which [vail] is done away in Christ . |
| 15 | But even unto this day , when Moses is read , the vail is upon their heart . |
| 16 | Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord , the vail shall be taken away . |
| 17 | Now the Lord is that Spirit : and where the Spirit of the Lord [is], there [is] liberty . |
| 18 | But we all , with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord , are changed into the same image from glory to glory , [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord . |
