| International Standard Version | NET Bible |
| 1Are we beginning to recommend ourselves again? Unlike some people, we do not need letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? | 1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don't need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? |
| 2You are our letter, written in our hearts and known and read by everyone. | 2You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone, |
| 3You are demonstrating that you are the Messiah's letter, produced by our service, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. | 3revealing that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts. |
| 4Such is the confidence that we have in God through the Messiah. | 4Now we have such confidence in God through Christ. |
| 5By ourselves we are not qualified to claim that anything comes from us. Rather, our credentials come from God, | 5Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, |
| 6who has also qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant, which is not written but spiritual, because the written text brings death, but the Spirit gives life. | 6who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. |
| 7Now if the ministry of death that was inscribed in letters of stone came with such glory that the people of Israel could not gaze on Moses' face (because the glory was fading away from it), | 7But if the ministry that produced death--carved in letters on stone tablets--came with glory, so that the Israelites could not keep their eyes fixed on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face (a glory which was made ineffective), |
| 8will not the Spirit's ministry have even more glory? | 8how much more glorious will the ministry of the Spirit be? |
| 9For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, then the ministry of justification has an overwhelming glory. | 9For if there was glory in the ministry that produced condemnation, how much more does the ministry that produces righteousness excel in glory! |
| 10In fact, that which once had glory lost its glory, because the other glory surpassed it. | 10For indeed, what had been glorious now has no glory because of the tremendously greater glory of what replaced it. |
| 11For if that which fades away came through glory, how much more does that which is permanent have glory? | 11For if what was made ineffective came with glory, how much more has what remains come in glory! |
| 12Therefore, since we have such a hope, we speak very boldly, | 12Therefore, since we have such a hope, we behave with great boldness, |
| 13not like Moses, who kept covering his face with a veil to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of what was fading away. | 13and not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from staring at the result of the glory that was made ineffective. |
| 14However, their minds were hardened, for to this day the same veil is still there when they read the old covenant. Only in union with the Messiah is that veil removed. | 14But their minds were closed. For to this very day, the same veil remains when they hear the old covenant read. It has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away. |
| 15Yet even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. | 15But until this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds, |
| 16But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. | 16but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. |
| 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord's Spirit is, there is freedom. | 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. |
| 18As all of us reflect the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, we are becoming more like him with ever-increasing glory by the Lord's Spirit. | 18And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit. |
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