Parallel Bible results for "2 corinthians 3"

2 Corinthians 3

The Message Bible MSG

1 Does it sound like we're patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we're not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you.

2 You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you.

3 Christ himself wrote it - not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives - and we publish it.

4 We couldn't be more sure of ourselves in this - that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation.

5 We wouldn't think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter.

6 His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn't written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It's written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!

7 The Government of Death, its constitution chiseled on stone tablets, had a dazzling inaugural. Moses' face as he delivered the tablets was so bright that day (even though it would fade soon enough) that the people of Israel could no more look right at him than stare into the sun.

8 How much more dazzling, then, the Government of Living Spirit?

9 If the Government of Condemnation was impressive, how about this Government of Affirmation?

10 Bright as that old government was, it would look downright dull alongside this new one.

11 If that makeshift arrangement impressed us, how much more this brightly shining government installed for eternity?

12 With that kind of hope to excite us, nothing holds us back.

13 Unlike Moses, we have nothing to hide. Everything is out in the open with us. He wore a veil so the children of Israel wouldn't notice that the glory was fading away -

14 and they didn't notice. They didn't notice it then and they don't notice it now, don't notice that there's nothing left behind that veil.

15 Even today when the proclamations of that old, bankrupt government are read out, they can't see through it. Only Christ can get rid of the veil so they can see for themselves that there's nothing there.

16 Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are - face to face!

17 They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it!

18 All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

New International Version NIV

1 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.

3 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 Such confidence we have through Christ before God.

5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.

6 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 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 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?

9 If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!

10 For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory.

11 And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!

12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.

13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.

14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.

15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.

16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.