1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? or do we need, as some others, letters of recommendation to you, or letters of recommendation from you? 2You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all men: 3And you show that you are letters of Christ delivered 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. 4And such is the trust we have through Christ before God. 5Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God; 6Who has also made us able ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. 7For if the ministry of death, written and engraved in stone, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance; and that glory fading: 8Shall not the ministry of the spirit be even more glorious? 9For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, far more does the ministry of righteousness exceed it in glory. 10For even that which was glorious no longer has glory, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11For if that which has faded away came with glory, how much more glorious is that which remains. 12Seeing then that we have such a hope, we use great boldness of speech: 13Not as Moses, who put a veil over his face, so the sons of Israel could not gaze upon that which was fading. 14But their minds were hardened: for to this day the same veil remains unlifted at the reading of the old covenant; because it is only removed through Christ. 15But even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts. 16But whenever a man shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18But we all, with unveiled faces beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into that same image, from glory to glory, and this is from the Lord, the Spirit.