GOD'S WORD Translation GW
New International Version NIV
1 Do we have to show you our qualifications again? Do we, like some people, need letters that recommend us to you or letters from you that recommend us to others?
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Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?
2 You're our letter of recommendation written in our hearts that everyone knows and reads.
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You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
3 It's clear that you are Christ's letter, written as a result of our ministry. You are a letter written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, a letter written not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
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You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Christ gives us confidence about you in God's presence.
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Such confidence we have through Christ before God.
5 By ourselves we are not qualified in any way to claim that we can do anything. Rather, God makes us qualified.
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Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
6 He has also qualified us to be ministers of a new promise, a spiritual promise, not a written one. Clearly, what was written brings death, but the Spirit brings life.
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He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 The ministry that brought death was inscribed on stone. Yet, it came with such glory that the people of Israel couldn't look at Moses' face. His face was shining with glory, even though that glory was fading.
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Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was,
8 Won't the ministry that brings the Spirit have even more glory?
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will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?
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Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.