New Century Version NCV
New International Version NIV
1 Are we starting to brag about ourselves again? Do we need letters of introduction to you or from you, like some other people?
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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 yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
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You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
3 You show that you are a letter from Christ sent through us. This letter is not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. It is not written on stone tabletsn but on 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 We can say this, because through Christ we feel certain before God.
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Such confidence we have through Christ before God.
5 We are not saying that we can do this work ourselves. It is God who makes us able to do all that we do.
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Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
6 He made us able to be servants of a new agreement from himself to his people. This new agreement is not a written law, but it is of the Spirit. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives 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 law that brought death was written in words on stone. It came with God's glory, which made Moses' face so bright that the Israelites could not continue to look at it. But that glory later disappeared.
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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 So surely the new way that brings the Spirit has even more glory.
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will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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.