New Revised Standard NRS
The Bible in Basic English BBE
1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we?
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Do we seem to be again attempting to put ourselves in the right? or have we need, as some have, of letters of approval to you or from you?
2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all;
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You yourselves are our letter, whose writing is in our heart, open for every man's reading and knowledge;
3 and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
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For you are clearly a letter of Christ, the fruit of our work, recorded not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in stone, but in hearts of flesh.
4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.
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And this is the certain faith which we have in God through Christ:
5 Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God,
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Not as if we were able by ourselves to do anything for which we might take the credit; but our power comes from God;
6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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Who has made us able to be servants of a new agreement; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter gives death, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses' face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside,
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For if the operation of the law, giving death, recorded in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the eyes of the children of Israel had to be turned away from the face of Moses because of its glory, a glory which was only for a time:
8 how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory?
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Will not the operation of the Spirit have a much greater glory?
9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory!
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For if the operation of the law, producing punishment, had its glory, how much greater will be the operation of the Spirit causing righteousness?
10 Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory;
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For the glory of the first no longer seems to be glory, because of the greater glory of that which comes after.
11 for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!
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For if the order which was for a time had its glory, much more will the eternal order have its glory.
12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness,
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Having then such a hope, we keep nothing back,
13 not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside.
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And are not like Moses, who put a veil on his face, so that the children of Israel might not see clearly to the end of the present order of things:
14 But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside.
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But their minds were made hard: for to this very day at the reading of the old agreement the same veil is still unlifted; though it is taken away in Christ.
15 Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds;
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But to this day, at the reading of the law of Moses, a veil is over their heart.
16 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
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But when it is turned to the Lord, the veil will be taken away.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
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Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there the heart is free.
18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
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But we all, with unveiled face giving back as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord who is the Spirit.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.