Ministers of a New Covenant

1Do we begin again to recommend ourselves, except we need, as some, letters of recommendation unto you, or from you? 2our letter ye are, having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men, 3manifested that ye are a letter of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in the tablets of stone, but in fleshy tablets of the heart,

4and such trust we have through the Christ toward God, 5not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency [is] of God, 6who also made us sufficient [to be] ministrants of a new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit; for the letter doth kill, and the spirit doth make alive.

The Glory of the New Covenant

(Exodus 34:29-35)

7and if the ministration of the death, in letters, engraved in stones, came in glory, so that the sons of Israel were not able to look stedfastly to the face of Moses, because of the glory of his face — which was being made useless, 8how shall the ministration of the Spirit not be more in glory? 9for if the ministration of the condemnation [is] glory, much more doth the ministration of the righteousness abound in glory; 10for also even that which hath been glorious, hath not been glorious — in this respect, because of the superior glory; 11for if that which is being made useless [is] through glory, much more that which is remaining [is] in glory.

12Having, then, such hope, we use much freedom of speech, 13and [are] not as Moses, who was putting a vail upon his own face, for the sons of Israel not stedfastly to look to the end of that which is being made useless, 14but their minds were hardened, for unto this day the same vail at the reading of the Old Covenant doth remain unwithdrawn — which in Christ is being made useless — 15but till to-day, when Moses is read, a vail upon their heart doth lie, 16and whenever they may turn unto the Lord, the vail is taken away. 17And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord [is], there [is] liberty; 18and we all, with unvailed face, the glory of the Lord beholding in a mirror, to the same image are being transformed, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.