1Do we begin again to show you who we are? Or do we, like others, need that letters recommendatory of us should be written to you? Or, that ye should write recommendations of us? 2Ye are our epistle, written on our hearts, and known and read by every man. 3For ye know that ye are an epistle of the Messiah, ministered by us; not written with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on the tablets of the heart of flesh. 4And such confidence have we in the Messiah towards God. 5Not that we are sufficient to think any thing as of ourselves; but our efficiency is from God: 6who hath fitted us to be ministers of the new Testament, not in the letter, but in the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. 7Now if the ministration of death was engraved upon stones in writing, and was so glorious that the children of Israel could not look on the face of Moses, on account of the glory upon his face which vanished away; 8how then shall not the ministration of the Spirit be still more glorious? 9For if there was glory in the ministration of condemnation, how much more shall the ministration of justification excel in glory? 10For that which was glorious, was as if not glorious, in comparison with this which excelleth in glory. 11For if that which is abolished was glorious, much more must that which abideth be glorious. 12Seeing therefore we have this hope, we the more speak with boldness; 13and are not like Moses, who threw a vail over his face, that the children of Israel might not behold the termination of that which was abolished. 14But they were blinded in their understanding; for until this day, when the old Testament is read, the same vail resteth upon them; nor is it manifest to them, that it is abolished by the Messiah. 15And unto this day, when Moses is read, a vail is thrown upon their hearts. 16But when any of them is turned unto the Lord, the vail is taken from him. 17Now the Lord himself is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we all, with uncovered faces, behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord; and are transformed into the same likeness, from glory to glory, as by the Lord the Spirit.