2 Corinthians 3

¹²We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they show their ignorance.

¹¹I have become a fool, but you drove me to it. In fact, you should have commended me, since I am in no way inferior to those “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing.

¹²We are not commending ourselves to you again. Instead, we are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, so that you can answer those who take pride in appearances rather than in the heart.

²⁷When Apollos resolved to cross over to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On his arrival, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed.

³Then, on my arrival, I will send letters with those you recommend to carry your gift to Jerusalem.

¹⁷For we are not like so many others, who peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as men sent from God.

¹Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you yourselves not my workmanship in the Lord?

²Even if I am not an apostle to others, surely I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

⁸For not only did the message of the Lord ring out from you to Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone out to every place, so that we have no need to say anything more.

⁸First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed all over the world.

⁷It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart. For in my chains and in my defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partners in grace with me.

³I do not say this to condemn you. I have said before that you so occupy our hearts that we live and die together with you.

¹¹Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!

¹⁹And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh,

³³“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

¹⁰For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

¹⁶“This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their hearts and inscribe them on their minds.”

⁸I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart.”

¹⁸When the Lord had finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.

⁶being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

¹²In Him and through faith in Him we may enter God’s presence with boldness and confidence.

⁸For not only did the message of the Lord ring out from you to Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone out to every place, so that we have no need to say anything more.

¹⁹Now listen to me; I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their causes to Him.

¹⁴But thanks be to God, who always leads us triumphantly as captives in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him.

⁹But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me.

¹³I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

¹³For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.

⁵I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.

¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.

⁶³The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

⁶But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

²For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death.

³¹Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

⁶Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises.

⁷For if that first covenant had been without fault, no place would have been sought for a second.

¹⁴But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed.

⁹For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness!

¹⁰Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory that surpasses it.

⁴For Christ is the end of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.

¹⁸When the Lord had finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.

¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.

³It is clear 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.

⁶And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

¹⁶Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

¹⁸For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

²according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

¹³But we should always thank God for you, brothers who are loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth.

²⁸And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

²⁹Even on My menservants and maidservants, I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

²³gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

¹⁸For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom, and storm;

¹⁹to a trumpet blast or to a voice that made its hearers beg that no further word be spoken.

²¹But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, as attested by the Law and the Prophets.

²²And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction,

²¹God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

⁶And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory,

⁴¹The sun has one degree of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

¹Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:

¹⁷For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

⁷I will shake all the nations, and they will come with all their treasures, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts.

⁸The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine, declares the Lord of Hosts.

⁵There will be no more night in the city, and they will have no need for the light of a lamp or of the sun. For the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.

⁵If even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in His sight,

¹³About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions.

⁷But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ.

⁸More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ

²⁰The law came in so that the trespass would increase; but where sin increased, grace increased all the more,

²¹so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹³By speaking of a new covenant, He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.

²¹but Jesus became a priest with an oath by the One who said to Him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’”

²²Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

¹Therefore, since God in His mercy has given us this ministry, we do not lose heart.

⁶And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory,

²⁵See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if the people did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject Him who warns us from heaven?

²⁶At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth, but heaven as well.”

⁴Great is my confidence in you; great is my pride in you; I am filled with encouragement; in all our troubles my joy overflows.

¹⁹Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will boldly make known the mystery of the gospel,

²⁰for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it fearlessly, as I should.

²⁰I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have complete boldness so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

¹³When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they marveled and took note that these men had been with Jesus.

²⁹His disciples said, “See, now You are speaking plainly and without figures of speech.

²As you are aware, we had already endured suffering and shameful treatment in Philippi. But in the face of strong opposition, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God.

³³When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

³⁴But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out, he would tell the Israelites what he had been commanded,

¹⁴For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility

¹⁵by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace

¹⁷These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Christ.

¹For the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, not the realities themselves. It can never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.

²If it could, would not the offerings have ceased? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt the guilt of their sins.

⁷Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory,

²³Before this faith came, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.

²⁴So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

³And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

⁴The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

¹⁸to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Me.’

²⁵I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.

¹⁷that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in your knowledge of Him.

¹⁸I ask that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints,

⁷What then? What Israel was seeking, it failed to obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened,

⁸as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”

⁴⁰“He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they cannot see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.”

²⁷The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning Him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath.

²⁸And though they found no ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have Him executed.

³⁴But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out, he would tell the Israelites what he had been commanded,

⁷On this mountain He will swallow up the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations;

¹⁸On that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of the deep darkness the eyes of the blind will see.

⁴⁵It is written in the Prophets: ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from Him comes to Me—

⁴⁶not that anyone has seen the Father except the One who is from God; only He has seen the Father.

²³And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

³⁴No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”

²For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death.

³²Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

¹³For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love.

⁶And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

¹It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.

⁶³The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

⁶For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

²²to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;

²³to be renewed in the spirit of your minds;

²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

⁴The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

¹²Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.