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