The Second to the Corinthians
3 Are we starting to recommend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some men, letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter,+ inscribed on our hearts and known and being read by all mankind. 3 For you are shown to be a letter of Christ written by us as ministers,+ inscribed not with ink but with the spirit of a living God, not on stone tablets+ but on fleshly tablets, on hearts.+
4 We have this sort of confidence toward God through the Christ. 5 Not that we of ourselves are adequately qualified to consider that anything comes from us, but our being adequately qualified comes from God,+ 6 who has indeed adequately qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant,+ not of a written code,+ but of spirit; for the written code condemns to death,+ but the spirit makes alive.+
7 Now if the code that administers death and that was engraved in letters on stones+ came with such glory that the sons of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face,+ a glory that was to be done away with, 8 why should the administering of the spirit+ not be with even greater glory?+ 9 For if the code administering condemnation+ was glorious,+ how much more glorious would be the administering of righteousness!+ 10 In fact, even what had once been made glorious has been stripped of glory because of the glory that excels it.+ 11 For if what was to be done away with was brought in with glory,+ how much greater would be the glory of what remains!+
12 Since we have such a hope,+ we are using great freeness of speech, 13 and not doing what Moses did when he would put a veil over his face+ so that the sons of Israel might not gaze intently at the end of what was to be done away with. 14 But their minds were dulled.+ For to this present day, the same veil remains unlifted when the old covenant is read,+ because it is taken away only by means of Christ.+ 15 In fact, to this day whenever Moses is read,+ a veil lies upon their hearts.+ 16 But when one turns to Jehovah,* the veil is taken away.+ 17 Now Jehovah* is the Spirit,+ and where the spirit of Jehovah* is, there is freedom.+ 18 And all of us, while we with unveiled faces reflect like mirrors the glory of Jehovah,* are transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,* exactly as it is done by Jehovah* the Spirit.*+