2 Corinthians 3
New Testament for Everyone
The letter and the spirit
3 So: we’re starting to “recommend ourselves” again, are we? Or perhaps we need—as some do—official references to give to you? Or perhaps even to get from you? 2 You are our official reference! It’s written on our hearts! Everybody can know it and read it! 3 It’s quite plain that you are a letter from the Messiah, with us as the messengers—a letter not written with ink but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of beating hearts.
4 That’s the kind of confidence we have towards God, through the Messiah. 5 It isn’t as though we are qualified in ourselves to reckon that we have anything to offer on our own account. Our qualification comes from God: 6 God has qualified us to be stewards of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit. The letter kills, you see, but the spirit gives life.
Death and glory
7 But just think about it: when death was being distributed, carved in letters of stone, it was a glorious thing, so glorious in fact that the children of Israel couldn’t look at Moses’s face because of the glory of his face—a glory that was to be abolished. 8 But in that case, when the spirit is being distributed, won’t that be glorious too? 9 If distributing condemnation is glorious, you see, how much more glorious is it to distribute vindication! 10 In fact, what used to be glorious has come in this respect to have no glory at all, because of the new glory which goes so far beyond it. 11 For if the thing which was to be abolished came with glory, how much more glory will there be for the thing that lasts.
The veil and the glory
12 So, because that’s the kind of hope we have, we speak with great freedom. 13 We aren’t like Moses: he put a veil over his face, to stop the children of Israel from gazing at the end of what was being abolished. 14 The difference is that their minds were hardened. You see, the same veil lies over the reading of the old covenant right up to this very day. It isn’t taken away, because it’s in the Messiah that it is abolished.
15 Yes, even to this day, whenever Moses is read, the veil lies upon their hearts; 16 but “whenever he turns back to the Lord, the veil is removed.” 17 Now “the Lord” here means the spirit; and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And all of us, without any veil on our faces, gaze at the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, and so are being changed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as you’d expect from the Lord, the spirit.
2 Corinthians 3
King James Version
3 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
4 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.
