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we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all people. 3 You show that you are a letter of Christ, produced by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 This is the measure of our confidence toward God through Christ. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was chiselled in letters on stone tablets, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look directly at the face of Moses because of the glorious radiance coming from his face, fading though it was, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be even more glorious? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness abounds with even more glory! 10 Indeed, what had been glorious has lost its glory because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what is fading away came with glory, what now endures is even more glorious!
12 Therefore, since we have such hope, we are very bold— 13 not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites could not gaze at his face while the radiance was fading away. 14 But their minds were closed, for to this day the same veil remains when they hear the old covenant read. That same veil remains, because it is set aside only in Christ. 15 Even to this day, whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And all of us, with our faces unveiled, are reflecting the glory of the Lord, and we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; and this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.