Shared Word Translation
2 Corinthians 3
Ministers of a New Covenant
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all, revealed as a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
The Glory of the New Covenant
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory that was being set aside, how will not the ministry of the Spirit be with greater glory?
For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must abound in glory even more. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being set aside came through glory, much more what remains is in glory.
Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the people of Israel might not gaze at the end of what was being set aside.
But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when the old covenant is read, the same veil remains, not being lifted, because it is set aside in Christ. Indeed, to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts; but whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled face, seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.