2Cor 3 | BSB | STEP | Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some [people] , letters of recommendation to you or from you?

2 Corinthians 3

Ministers of a New Covenant

1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some [people] , letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts, known and read by everyone. 3 It is clear that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with [the] Spirit of [the] living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such confidence before God is ours through Christ. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything [comes] from us, but our competence [comes] from God. 6 And He has qualified us [as] ministers of a new covenant, not of [the] letter but of [the] Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The Glory of the New Covenant

7 Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with {such} glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of [its] fleeting glory, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit {be} even more glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious {is} the ministry of righteousness! 10 Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory [that] surpasses [it] . 11 For if what was fading away [came] with glory, how much greater [is the] glory of that which endures! 12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. 13 [We are] not like Moses, [who] would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites [from] gazing at the end of what was fading away. 14 But their minds were closed. For to [this] day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, [because] only in Christ can it be removed. 15 And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever [anyone] 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, [who] with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of [the] Lord, are being transformed into [His] image with intensifying glory, which comes from [the] Lord, [who is the] Spirit.