3:1   Do we begin to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?

3:2   You represent our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men;

3:3   We maintain that you constitute a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

3:4   Such confidence we have through Christ toward God.

3:5   Not that we feel adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy derives from God,

3:6   who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

3:7  But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it seemed,

3:8   how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to appear even more glorious?

3:9   For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory.

3:10   For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it.

3:11   For if that which fades away came with glory, much more that which remains does so in glory.

3:12   Therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech,

3:13   and do not behave like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what would fade away.

3:14   But their minds became hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because Christ removes it .

3:15   But to this day whenever they read Moses, a veil lies over their heart;

3:16   but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the Lord takes away the veil .

3:17   Now the Lord consists of Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord dwells, there dwells liberty.

3:18   But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, will undergo transformation into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.