Do we
begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as
some others, epistles of commendation to you, or
letters of commendation from you?
02 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts,
known and read of all men:
03 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.
04 And such trust have we through Christ to
God-ward:
05 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to
think any thing as of ourselves; but our
sufficiency is of God;
06 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.
07 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:
08 How shall not the ministration of the spirit
be rather glorious?
09 For if the ministration of condemnation be
glory, much more doth the ministration of
righteousness exceed in glory.
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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.
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