1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

2You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.3:2 1Co 9:2

3You show that you are Christ’s letter,3:3 Phm 13 delivered3:3 Lit ministered to by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God3:3 Dt 5:26 — not on tablets of stone3:3 Ex 24:12 but on tablets of human hearts.3:3 Lit fleshly hearts3:3 Pr 3:3; 7:3; Jr 17:1; 31:33; Ezk 11:19; 36:26; Heb 8:10

4Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God.

5It is not that we are competent in3:5 Lit from ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.3:5 1Co 15:10

6He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant,3:6 Lk 22:20; Heb 7:22 not of the letter,3:6 Rm 7:6 but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

7Now if the ministry that brought death, chiseled in letters on stones, came with glory,3:7 Ex 34:29–35; Mk 10:37; Lk 9:32; Jn 17:24; 2Co 3:18; 2Pt 3:18 so that the Israelites were not able to gaze steadily at Moses’s face because of its glory, which was set aside,

8how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?

9For if the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory.

10In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it.

11For if what was set aside3:11 Heb 2:14 was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious.