2 Corinthians 3
1Do
we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation
from you?
2Ye are our epistle written in our
hearts, known and read of all men:
3Forasmuch
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.
4And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
5Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is
of God;
6Who 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.
7But 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:
8How shall not the ministration
of the spirit be rather glorious?
9For if
the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason
of the glory that excelleth.
11For if that
which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
12Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel
could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14But 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.
15But
even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18But 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.
