3:1 Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as do some, letters of commendation to you+ or from you+?
3:2 Our letter is you+, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
3:3 being made manifest that you+ are a letter of Christ, served by us, not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables [that are] hearts of flesh.
3:4 And such confidence we have through Christ toward God:
3:5 not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God;
3:6 who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
3:7 But if the service of death, written, [and] engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look steadfastly on the face of Moses for the glory of his face; which [glory] was passing away:
3:8 how will not rather the service of the spirit be with glory?
3:9 For if in the service of condemnation [there is] glory, much rather does the service of righteousness exceed in glory.
3:10 For truly that which has been made glorious has not been made glorious in this respect, by reason of the glory that surpasses.
3:11 For if that which passes away [was] with glory, much more that which stays [is] in glory.
3:12 Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness of speech,
3:13 and [are] not as Moses, [who] put a veil on his face, that the sons of Israel should not look steadfastly on the end of that which was passing away:
3:14 but their minds were hardened. For until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil stays, not being unveiled, because it is in Christ that it is removed.
3:15 But to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.
3:16 But upon turning to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there] is liberty.
3:18 But all of us, with unveiled face looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.