Ministers of the New Covenant

¹qAre we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, ras some do, sletters of recommendation to you, or from you? ²tYou yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our1 hearts, to be known and read by all. ³And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of uthe living God, not on vtablets of stone but on wtablets of xhuman hearts.2

⁴ySuch is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. ⁵zNot that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but aour sufficiency is from God, ⁶who has made us sufficient to be bministers of ca new covenant, not of dthe letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but ethe Spirit gives life.

⁷Now if fthe ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory gthat the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, ⁸will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? ⁹For if there was glory in hthe ministry of condemnation, ithe ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. ¹⁰Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it.

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