Ministers of a New Covenant

3 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Do we need,[fn] like some [people], letters of recommendation to you or from you?[fn] 2 You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts, known and read by everyone 3 It 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.

4 Such confidence before God is ours through Christ. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything [comes] from us, but our competence [comes] from God. 6 And 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.