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1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters {epistolōn} of recommendation to you⁺ or from you⁺? 2 You⁺ yourselves are our letter {epistolē}, inscribed on our hearts, known and read by everyone. 3 It is clear that you⁺ are a letter {epistolē} from Christ (the Anointed One), the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit {Pneumati} of the living God {Theou}, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such confidence before God {Theon} is ours through Christ (the Anointed One). 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God {Theou}. 6 And He has qualified us as ministers {diakonous} of a new covenant {diathēkēs}, not of the letter but of the Spirit {pneumatos}; for the letter kills, but the Spirit {pneuma} gives life. 7 Now if the ministry {diakonia} of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory {doxē} that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses (drawn out) because of its fleeting glory {doxan}, 8 will not the ministry {diakonia} of the Spirit {pneumatos} be even more glorious? 9 For if the ministry {diakonia} of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness! 10 Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was fading away came with glory {doxēs}, how much greater is the glory {doxē} of that which endures! 2 Corinthians 3:1-11, Berean Annotated Bible. Public domain.
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