3 Are we starting to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of introduction to you or from you like other people, do we? ² You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. ³ You show that you are Christ’s letter, delivered by us. You weren’t written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. You weren’t written on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

⁴ This is the confidence that we have through Christ in the presence of God. ⁵ It isn’t that we ourselves are qualified to claim that anything came from us. No, our qualification is from God. ⁶ He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not based on what is written but on the Spirit, because what is written kills, but the Spirit gives life.