Jesus

For however many promises God has made, they all find their “Yes” in connection with him; that is why it is through him that we say the “Amen” when we give glory to God.

Moreover, it is God who sets both us and you in firm union with the Messiah; he has anointed us,

Anyone you forgive, I forgive too. For indeed, whatever I have forgiven, if there has been anything to forgive, has been for your sake in the presence of the Messiah

Now when I went to Troas to proclaim the Good News of the Messiah, since a door had been opened for me by the Lord,

But thanks be to God, who in the Messiah constantly leads us in a triumphal procession and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of what it means to know him!

For to God we are the aroma of the Messiah, both among those being saved and among those being lost;

For we are not like a lot of folks who go about huckstering God’s message for a fee; on the contrary, we speak out of a sincere heart, as people sent by God, standing in God’s presence, living in union with the Messiah.

You make it clear that you are a letter from the Messiah placed in our care, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on human hearts.

Such is the confidence we have through the Messiah toward God.

What is more, their minds were made stonelike; for to this day the same veil remains over them when they read the Old Covenant; it has not been unveiled, because only by the Messiah is the veil taken away.

“But,” says the Torah, “whenever someone turns to Adonai, the veil is taken away.”

Now, “Adonai” in this text means the Spirit. And where the Spirit of Adonai is, there is freedom.

So all of us, with faces unveiled, see as in a mirror the glory of the Lord; and we are being changed into his very image, from one degree of glory to the next, by Adonai the Spirit.

They do not come to trust because the god of the ‘olam hazeh has blinded their minds, in order to prevent them from seeing the light shining from the Good News about the glory of the Messiah, who is the image of God.

For what we are proclaiming is not ourselves, but the Messiah Yeshua as Lord, with ourselves as slaves for you because of Yeshua.

For it is the God who once said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has made his light shine in our hearts, the light of the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of the Messiah Yeshua.

We always carry in our bodies the dying of Yeshua, so that the life of Yeshua may be manifested in our bodies too.

For we who are alive are always being handed over to death for Yeshua’s sake, so that Yeshua’s life also might be manifested in our mortal bodies.

because we know that he who raised the Lord Yeshua will also raise us with Yeshua and bring us along with you into his presence.

Moreover, it is God who has prepared us for this very thing, and as a pledge he has given us his Spirit.

So we are always confident — we know that so long as we are at home in the body, we are away from our home with the Lord;

We are confident, then, and would much prefer to leave our home in the body and come to our home with the Lord.

Therefore, whether at home or away from home, we try our utmost to please him;

for we must all appear before the Messiah’s court of judgment, where everyone will receive the good or bad consequences of what he did while he was in the body.

So it is with the fear of the Lord before us that we try to persuade people. Moreover, God knows us as we really are; and I hope that in your consciences you too know us as we really are.