Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks
Ministers of the New Covenant
3 Are we beginning to recommend ourselves again? Unlike some people, we do not need letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? 2 You are our letter, written in our hearts and known and read by everyone. 3 You are demonstrating that you are the Messiah’s[a] letter, produced by our service, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Such is the confidence that we have in God through the Messiah.[b] 5 By ourselves we are not qualified to claim that anything comes from us. Rather, our credentials come from God, 6 who has also qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant, which is not written but spiritual, because the written text[c] brings death, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if the ministry of death that was inscribed in letters of stone came with such glory that the people of Israel could not gaze on Moses’ face (because the glory was fading away from it), 8 will not the Spirit’s ministry have even more glory? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, then the ministry of justification has an overwhelming glory. 10 In fact, that which once had glory lost its glory, because the other glory surpassed it. 11 For if that which fades away came[d] through glory, how much more does that which is permanent have glory?
12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we speak very boldly, 13 not like Moses, who kept covering his face with a veil to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of what was fading away. 14 However, their minds were hardened, for to this day the same veil is still there when they read the old covenant. Only in union with the Messiah[e] is that veil removed.[f] 15 Yet even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom. 18 As all of us reflect the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, we are becoming more like him with ever-increasing glory by the Lord’s Spirit.
Treasure in Clay Jars
4 Therefore, since we have this ministry through the mercy shown to us, we do not get discouraged. 2 Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use trickery or pervert God’s word. By clear statements of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God.
3 So if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are dying.[g] 4 In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe to keep them from seeing the light of the glorious gospel of the Messiah,[h] who is the image of God.
5 For we do not preach ourselves, but rather Jesus the Messiah[i] as Lord, and ourselves as merely your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”[j] has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus[k] the Messiah.[l]
7 But we have this treasure in clay jars to show that its extraordinary power comes from God and not from us. 8 In every way we’re troubled but not crushed, frustrated but not in despair, 9 persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. 10 We are always carrying around the death of Jesus in our bodies, so that the life of Jesus may be clearly shown in our bodies. 11 While we are alive, we are constantly being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be clearly shown in our mortal bodies. 12 And so death is at work in us, but life is at work[m] in you.
13 Now since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with this Scripture: “I believed, and so I spoke,”[n] we also believe and therefore speak. 14 We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us to God[o] together with you. 15 All this is for your sake so that, as his grace spreads, more and more people will give thanks and glorify God.
Life in an Earthly Tent
16 That’s why we are not discouraged. No, even if outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are being renewed each and every day. 17 This light, temporary nature of our suffering is producing for us an everlasting weight of glory, far beyond any comparison, 18 because we do not look for things that can be seen but for things that cannot be seen. For things that can be seen are temporary, but things that cannot be seen are eternal.
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