Letters to the Churches

so that now you should do the opposite — forgive him, encourage him, comfort him. Otherwise such a person might be swallowed up in overwhelming depression.

So I urge you to show that you really do love him.

The reason I wrote you was to see if you would pass the test, to see if you would fully obey me.

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

so that we will not be taken advantage of by the Adversary — for we are quite aware of his schemes!

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,

I could not rest, because I failed to find my brother Titus. So I left the people there and went on to Macedonia.

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;

to the latter, we are the smell of death leading only to more death; but to the former, we are the sweet smell of life leading to more life. Who is equal to such a task?

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.

Are we starting to recommend ourselves again? Or do we, like some, need letters of recommendation either to you or from you?

You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.

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.

It is not that we are competent in ourselves to count anything as having come from us; on the contrary, our competence is from God.

He has even made us competent to be workers serving a New Covenant, the essence of which is not a written text but the Spirit. For the written text brings death, but the Spirit gives life.

Now if that which worked death, by means of a written text engraved on stone tablets, came with glory — such glory that the people of Isra’el could not stand to look at Moshe’s face because of its brightness, even though that brightness was already fading away —

won’t the working of the Spirit be accompanied by even greater glory?

For if there was glory in what worked to declare people guilty, how much more must the glory abound in what works to declare people innocent!

In fact, by comparison with this greater glory, what was made glorious before has no glory now.

For if there was glory in what faded away, how much more glory must there be in what lasts.

Therefore, with a hope like this, we are very open —

unlike Moshe, who put a veil over his face, so that the people of Isra’el would not see the fading brightness come to an end.

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.