Corinthios Ii 3
1 Incipimus iterum nosmetipsos commendare? Aut numquid egemus (sicut quidam) commendatiis epistolis ad vos, aut ex vobis?
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or are we like some who need letters of commendation to you, or from you?
2 Epistola nostra vos estis, scripta in cordibus nostris, quæ scitur, et legitur ab omnibus hominibus:
You yourselves are our letter – a letter written on our hearts, and one which everybody can read and understand.
3 manifestati quod epistola estis Christi, ministrata a nobis, et scripta non atramento, sed Spiritu Dei vivi: non in tabulis lapideis, sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus.
All can see that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, a letter written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.
4 Fiduciam autem talem habemus per Christum ad Deum:
This, then, is the confidence in regard to God that we have gained through the Christ.
5 non quod sufficientes simus cogitare aliquid a nobis, quasi ex nobis: sed sufficientia nostra ex Deo est:
I do not mean that we are fit to form any judgment by ourselves, as if on our own authority;
6 qui et idoneos nos fecit ministros novi testamenti: non littera, sed Spiritu: littera enim occidit, Spiritus autem vivificat.
our fitness comes from God, who himself made us fit to be assistants of a new covenant, of which the substance is, not a written Law, but a Spirit. For the written Law means death, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Quod si ministratio mortis litteris deformata in lapidibus, fuit in gloria, ita ut non possent intendere filii Israel in faciem Moysi propter gloriam vultus eius, quæ evacuatur:
If the system of religion which involved death, embodied in a written Law and engraved on stones, began amid such glory, that the Israelites were unable to gaze at the face of Moses because of its glory, though it was but a passing glory,
8 quomodo non magis ministratio Spiritus erit in gloria?
will not the religion that confers the Spirit have still greater glory?
9 Nam si ministratio damnationis gloria est: multo magis abundat ministerium iustitiæ in gloria.
For, if there was a glory in the religion that involved condemnation, far greater is the glory of the religion that confers righteousness!
10 Nam nec glorificatum est, quod claruit in hac parte, propter excellentem gloriam.
Indeed, that which then had glory has lost its glory, because of the glory which surpasses it.
11 Si enim quod evacuatur, per gloriam est: multo magis quod manet, in gloria est.
And, if that which was to pass away was attended with glory, far more will that which is to endure be surrounded with glory!
12 Habentes igitur talem spem, multa fiducia utimur:
With such a hope as this, we speak with all plainness;
13 et non sicut Moyses ponebat velamen super faciem suam, ut non intenderent filii Israel in faciem eius, quod evacuatur,
unlike Moses, who covered his face with a veil, to prevent the Israelites from gazing at the disappearance of what was passing away.
14 sed obtusi sunt sensus eorum. Usque in hodiernum enim diem, idipsum velamen in lectione veteris testamenti manet non revelatum, (quoniam in Christo evacuatur)
But their minds were slow to learn. Indeed, to this very day, at the public reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains; only for those who are in union with Christ does it pass away.
15 sed usque in hodiernum diem, cum legitur Moyses, velamen positum est super cor eorum.
But, even to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies on their hearts.
16 Cum autem conversus fuerit ad Dominum, auferetur velamen.
Yet, whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
17 Dominus autem Spiritus est: Ubi autem Spiritus Domini: ibi libertas.
And the Lord is the Spirit, and, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
18 Nos vero omnes, revelata facie gloriam Domini speculantes, in eandem imaginem transformamur a claritate in claritatem, tamquam a Domini Spiritu.
And all of us, with faces from which the veil is lifted, seeing, as if reflected in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his likeness, from glory to glory, as it is given by the Lord, the Spirit.
