The Seventy Elders

¹⁶ So the Lord said to Moses: “Gather to Me ^(A)seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and ^(B)officers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. ¹⁷ Then I will come down and talk with you there. ^(C)I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone. ¹⁸ Then you shall say to the people, ^[a]‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept ^(D)in the hearing of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. ¹⁹ You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, ^20 (E)but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have ^(F)despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, ^(G)“Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?” ’ ”

²¹ And Moses said, ^(H)“The people whom I am among are six hundred thousand men on foot; yet You have said, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat for a whole month.’ ^22 (I)Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to provide enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to provide enough for them?”

²³ And the Lord said to Moses, ^(J)“Has^[b] the Lord’s arm been shortened? Now you shall see whether ^(K)what I say will happen to you or not.”

²⁴ So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he ^(L)gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle. ²⁵ Then the Lord came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, ^(M)when the Spirit rested upon them, that ^(N)they prophesied, ^[c]although they never did so again.

²⁶ But two men had remained in the camp: the name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who ^(O)had not gone out to the tabernacle; yet they prophesied in the camp. ²⁷ And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

²⁸ So Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, “Moses my lord, ^(P)forbid them!”

²⁹ Then Moses said to him, “Are you ^[d]zealous for my sake? ^(Q)Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!”

¹⁴ For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that ^(A)if One died for all, then all died; ¹⁵ and He died for all, ^(B)that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

^16 (C)Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, ^(D)yet now we know Him thus no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone ^(E)is in Christ, he is ^(F)a new creation; ^(G)old things have passed away; behold, all things have become ^(H)new. ¹⁸ Now all things are of God, ^(I)who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹ that is, that ^(J)God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not ^[a]imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

²⁰ Now then, we are ^(K)ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. ²¹ For ^(L)He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become ^(M)the righteousness of God in Him.

Marks of the Ministry

6 We then, as ^(N)workers together with Him also ^(O)plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. ² For He says:

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

^3 (Q)We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. ⁴ But in all things we commend ourselves ^(R)as ministers of God: in much ^[b]patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, ^5 (S)in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; ⁶ by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by ^[c]sincere love, ^7 (T)by the word of truth, by ^(U)the power of God, by ^(V)the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, ⁸ by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; ⁹ as unknown, and ^(W)yet well known; ^(X)as dying, and behold we live; ^(Y)as chastened, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many ^(Z)rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

A New Covenant

³¹ “Behold, the ^(A)days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— ³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that ^(B)I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, ^[a]though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. ^33 (C)But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: ^(D)I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their ^[b]hearts; ^(E)and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ³⁴ No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for ^(F)they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For ^(G)I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Christ’s Epistle^(A)

3 Do ^(B)we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, ^(C)epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? ^2 (D)You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; ³ clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ^(E)ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not ^(F)on tablets of stone but ^(G)on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.

The Spirit, Not the Letter

⁴ And we have such trust through Christ toward God. ^5 (H)Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but ^(I)our sufficiency is from God, ⁶ who also made us sufficient as ^(J)ministers of ^(K)the new covenant, not ^(L)of the letter but of the ^[a]Spirit; for ^(M)the letter kills, ^(N)but the Spirit gives life.

Glory of the New Covenant

⁷ But if ^(O)the ministry of death, ^(P)written and engraved on stones, was glorious, ^(Q)so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, ⁸ how will ^(R)the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? ⁹ For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry ^(S)of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. ¹⁰ For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. ¹¹ For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.

¹² Therefore, since we have such hope, ^(T)we use great boldness of speech— ¹³ unlike Moses, ^(U)who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at ^(V)the end of what was passing away. ¹⁴ But ^(W)their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. ¹⁵ But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. ¹⁶ Nevertheless ^(X)when one turns to the Lord, ^(Y)the veil is taken away. ¹⁷ Now ^(Z)the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is ^(AA)liberty. ¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding ^(AB)as in a mirror ^(AC)the glory of the Lord, ^(AD)are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as ^[b]by the Spirit of the Lord.