| 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. |
