1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need letters of recommendation to you or from you, as some do? 2 You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, delivered through our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on hearts of flesh as tablets. 4 Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ. 5 We are not sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves; our sufficiency comes from God, 6 who has also 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. 7 Now if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was passing away, 8 how much more will the ministry of the Spirit have glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness overflows with far greater glory. 10 Indeed, in this respect what once had glory has no glory, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was passing away came with glory, how much more does what remains have glory! 12 Since we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, 13 unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were hardened. For to this very day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It is not lifted, because it is removed in Christ. 15 To this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart. 16 But whenever one 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 we all, with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.