Ministers of a New Covenant

1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or like some, do we need commendatory letters to you or from you? 2You are our letter, having been inscribed in our hearts, being known and being read by all men, 3being revealed that you are a letter of Christ, having been ministered to by us, having been inscribed not in ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.

4Now we have such confidence through Christ toward God. 5Not that we are sufficient from ourselves to reckon anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, 6who also has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The Glory of the New Covenant
(Exodus 34:29-35)

7Now if the ministry of death, having been engraved in letters on stones, was produced in glory, so as for the sons of Israel not to be able to look intently into the face of Moses, on account of the glory of his face which is fading, 8how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more in glory? 9For if glory was in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory! 10For even that having been made glorious has not been glorified in this respect, on account of the glory surpassing it. 11For if that which is fading away was through glory, much more is that remaining in glory!

12Therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness, 13and not as Moses would put a veil over his face for the sons of Israel not to look intently into the end of that fading away.

14But their minds were hardened; for until the present day, the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant, not being lifted, which is being removed in Christ. 15But unto this day, when Moses shall be read, a veil lies over their heart. 16But whenever one shall have turned to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

17Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we all having been unveiled in face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.