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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! 2 Corinthians 3:1-9, Berean Annotated Bible. Public domain.
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