2 Corinthians Chapter 3
Ministry of the New Covenant
1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you like some do, do we? 2 You’re our letter that everybody can know and read, written on our hearts. 3 You’re an open letter from Christ, served by us, not written with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets, but on human hearts.
4 We have so much confidence in God through Christ, 5 not because we’re adequate to consider anything as our own accomplishment, but adequate because of what comes from God. 6 He has made us adequate ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. The letter deadens; the spirit enlivens.
7 The ministry that brought death—engraved with letters on stone—came with so much glory that the Israelites couldn’t look at Moses’ face—a fading glory. 8 Won’t the ministry of the spirit have even more glory? 9 If the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, how much more glory does the ministry have that brings goodness. 10 What had glory doesn’t have any in comparison to what has greater glory. 11 What faded away had glory, but what doesn’t fade away has a lot more glory.
2 Cor 3:1-11
Freedom from Law
12 With that kind of hope, let’s be bold. 13 Let’s not be like Moses, who put a veil on so the Israelites wouldn’t have to look at what was fading away. 14-15 Their minds were insensitive. To this day when they read the Old Covenant, the same veil is there. They don’t understand that ChristMessiah removes it. 16 When their heart turns to the Lord, the veil disappears. 17 Now the Lord is the spirit of the Old Covenant, and where his spirit is, there’s freedom. 18 When with unveiled face we look at the glory of the Lord in a mirror, the Lord, the spirit, transforms us into that same image from glory to more glory.
2 Cor 3:12-18