The Second to the Corinthians 3:1-18

  • Letters of recommendation (1-3)

  • Ministers of the new covenant (4-6)

  • New covenant’s superior glory (7-18)

3  Are we starting to recommend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some men, letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2  You yourselves are our letter,+ inscribed on our hearts and known and being read by all mankind. 3  For you are shown to be a letter of Christ written by us as ministers,+ inscribed not with ink but with the spirit of a living God, not on stone tablets+ but on fleshly tablets, on hearts.+ 4  We have this sort of confidence toward God through the Christ. 5  Not that we of ourselves are adequately qualified to consider that anything comes from us, but our being adequately qualified comes from God,+ 6  who has indeed adequately qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant,+ not of a written code,+ but of spirit; for the written code condemns to death,+ but the spirit makes alive.+ 7  Now if the code that administers death and that was engraved in letters on stones+ came with such glory that the sons of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face,+ a glory that was to be done away with, 8  why should the administering of the spirit+ not be with even greater glory?+ 9  For if the code administering condemnation+ was glorious,+ how much more glorious would be the administering of righteousness!+ 10  In fact, even what had once been made glorious has been stripped of glory because of the glory that excels it.+ 11  For if what was to be done away with was brought in with glory,+ how much greater would be the glory of what remains!+ 12  Since we have such a hope,+ we are using great freeness of speech, 13  and not doing what Moses did when he would put a veil over his face+ so that the sons of Israel might not gaze intently at the end of what was to be done away with. 14  But their minds were dulled.+ For to this present day, the same veil remains unlifted when the old covenant is read,+ because it is taken away only by means of Christ.+ 15  In fact, to this day whenever Moses is read,+ a veil lies upon their hearts.+ 16  But when one turns to Jehovah,* the veil is taken away.+ 17  Now Jehovah* is the Spirit,+ and where the spirit of Jehovah* is, there is freedom.+ 18  And all of us, while we with unveiled faces reflect like mirrors the glory of Jehovah,* are transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,* exactly as it is done by Jehovah* the Spirit.*+

Footnotes

Lit., “from glory to glory.”
Or possibly, “by the spirit of Jehovah.”