3:1 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some [others], epistles of commendation to you, or [letters] of commendation from you?
3:2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3:3 [Forasmuch as ye are] manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
3:4 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency [is] of God;
3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
3:7 But if the ministration of death, written [and] engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which [glory] was to be done away:
3:8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
3:9 For if the ministration of condemnation [be] glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
3:10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
3:11 For if that which is done away [was] glorious, much more that which remaineth [is] glorious.
3:12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
3:13 And not as Moses, [which] put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
3:14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which [vail] is done away in Christ.
3:15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
3:16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord [is], there [is] liberty.
3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.