1. Are we starting to brag about ourselves again? Do we need letters of introduction to you or from you, like some other people?
2. You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
3. You show that you are a letter from Christ sent through us. This letter is not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. It is not written on stone tablets but on human hearts.
4. We can say this, because through Christ we feel certain before God.
5. We are not saying that we can do this work ourselves. It is God who makes us able to do all that we do.
6. He made us able to be servants of a new agreement from himself to his people. This new agreement is not a written law, but it is of the Spirit. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life.