HOLY BIBLE: 2 Corinthians 3 (original) (raw)

1 Ἀρχόμεθα πάλιν ἑαυτοὺς συνιστάνειν; ἢ μὴ χρῄζομεν ὥς τινες συστατικῶν ἐπιστολῶν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἢ ἐξ ὑμῶν; 2 ἡ ἐπιστολὴ ἡμῶν ὑμεῖς ἐστε, ἐγγεγραμμένη ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν, γινωσκομένη καὶ ἀναγινωσκομένη ὑπὸ πάντων ἀνθρώπων: 3 φανερούμενοι ὅτι ἐστὲ ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ διακονηθεῖσα ὑφ' ἡμῶν, ἐγγεγραμμένη οὐ μέλανι ἀλλὰ πνεύματι θεοῦ ζῶντος, οὐκ ἐν πλαξὶν λιθίναις ἀλλ' ἐν πλαξὶν καρδίαις σαρκίναις. 4 πεποίθησιν δὲ τοιαύτην ἔχομεν διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. 5 οὐχ ὅτι ἀφ' ἑαυτῶν ἱκανοί ἐσμεν λογίσασθαί τι ὡς ἐξ ἑαυτῶν, ἀλλ' ἡ ἱκανότης ἡμῶν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, 6 ὃς καὶ ἱκάνωσεν ἡμᾶς διακόνους καινῆς διαθήκης, οὐ γράμματος ἀλλὰ πνεύματος: τὸ γὰρ γράμμα ἀποκτέννει, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζῳοποιεῖ. 7 εἰ δὲ ἡ διακονία τοῦ θανάτου ἐν γράμμασιν ἐντετυπωμένη λίθοις ἐγενήθη ἐν δόξῃ, ὥστε μὴ δύνασθαι ἀτενίσαι τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον Μωϋσέως διὰ τὴν δόξαν τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ τὴν καταργουμένην, 8 πῶς οὐχὶ μᾶλλον ἡ διακονία τοῦ πνεύματος ἔσται ἐν δόξῃ; 9 εἰ γὰρ τῇ διακονίᾳ τῆς κατακρίσεως δόξα, πολλῷ μᾶλλον περισσεύει ἡ διακονία τῆς δικαιοσύνης δόξῃ. 10 καὶ γὰρ οὐ δεδόξασται τὸ δεδοξασμένον ἐν τούτῳ τῷ μέρει εἵνεκεν τῆς ὑπερβαλλούσης δόξης. 11 εἰ γὰρ τὸ καταργούμενον διὰ δόξης, πολλῷ μᾶλλον τὸ μένον ἐν δόξῃ.

1 You will say, perhaps, that we are making a fresh attempt to recommend ourselves to your favour. What, do we need letters of recommendation to you, or from you, as some others do?[1] 2 Why, you yourselves are the letter we carry about with us, written in our hearts, for all to recognize and to read. 3 You are an open letter from Christ, promulgated through us; a message written not in ink, but in the Spirit of the living God, with human hearts, instead of stone, to carry it. 4 Such, through Christ, is the confidence in which we make our appeal to God. 5 Not that, left to ourselves, we are able to frame any thought as coming from ourselves; all our ability comes from God, 6 since it is he who has enabled us to promulgate his new law to men. It is a spiritual, not a written law; the written law inflicts death, whereas the spiritual law brings life. 7 We know how that sentence of death, engraved in writing upon stone, was promulgated to men in a dazzling cloud, so that the people of Israel could not look Moses in the face, for the brightness of it, although that brightness soon passed away. 8 How much more dazzling, then, must be the brightness in which the spiritual law is promulgated to them! 9 If there is a splendour in the proclamation of our guilt, there must be more splendour yet in the proclamation of our acquittal; 10 and indeed, what once seemed resplendent seems by comparison resplendent no longer, so much does the greater splendour outshine it.[2] 11 What passed away passed in a flash of glory; what remains, remains instead in a blaze of glory.

1 Incipimus iterum nosmetipsos commendare? aut numquid egemus (sicut quidam) commendatitiis epistolis ad vos, aut ex vobis? 2 Epistola nostra vos estis, scripta in cordibus nostris, quæ scitur, et legitur ab omnibus hominibus: 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. 4 Fiduciam autem talem habemus per Christum ad Deum: 5 non quod sufficientes simus cogitare aliquid a nobis, quasi ex nobis: sed sufficientia nostra ex Deo est: 6 qui et idoneos nos fecit ministros novi testamenti: non littera, sed Spiritu: littera enim occidit, Spiritus autem vivificat. 7 Quod si ministratio mortis litteris deformata in lapidibus fuit in gloria, ita ut non possent intendere filii Israël in faciem Moysi propter gloriam vultus ejus, quæ evacuatur: 8 quomodo non magis ministratio Spiritus erit in gloria? 9 Nam si ministratio damnationis gloria est: multo magis abundat ministerium justitiæ in gloria. 10 Nam nec glorificatum est, quod claruit in hac parte, propter excellentem gloriam. 11 Si enim quod evacuatur, per gloriam est: multo magis quod manet, in gloria est.

12 Ἔχοντες οὖν τοιαύτην ἐλπίδα πολλῇ παρρησίᾳ χρώμεθα, 13 καὶ οὐ καθάπερ Μωϋσῆς ἐτίθει κάλυμμα ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενίσαι τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου. 14 ἀλλὰ ἐπωρώθη τὰ νοήματα αὐτῶν. ἄχρι γὰρ τῆς σήμερον ἡμέρας τὸ αὐτὸ κάλυμμα ἐπὶ τῇ ἀναγνώσει τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης μένει μὴ ἀνακαλυπτόμενον, ὅτι ἐν Χριστῷ καταργεῖται: 15 ἀλλ' ἕως σήμερον ἡνίκα ἂν ἀναγινώσκηται Μωϋσῆς κάλυμμα ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῶν κεῖται: 16 ἡνίκα δὲ ἐὰν ἐπιστρέψῃ πρὸς κύριον, περιαιρεῖται τὸ κάλυμμα. 17 ὁ δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν: οὗ δὲ τὸ πνεῦμα κυρίου, ἐλευθερία. 18 ἡμεῖς δὲ πάντες ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ προσώπῳ τὴν δόξαν κυρίου κατοπτριζόμενοι τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα ἀπὸ δόξης εἰς δόξαν, καθάπερ ἀπὸ κυρίου πνεύματος.

12 Such is the ground of our confidence, and we speak out boldly enough. 13 It is not for us to use veiled language, as Moses veiled his face. He did it, so that the people of Israel might not go on gazing at the features of the old order, which was passing away. 14 But in spite of that, dullness has crept over their senses, and to this day the reading of the old law is muffled with the same veil; no revelation tells them that it has been abrogated in Christ. 15 To this day, I say, when the law of Moses is read out, a veil hangs over their hearts.[3] 16 There must be a turning to the Lord first, and then the veil will be taken away. 17 The Spirit we have been speaking of is the Lord; and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom. 18 It is given to us, all alike, to catch the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, with faces unveiled; and so we become transfigured into the same likeness, borrowing glory from that glory, as the Spirit of the Lord enables us.[4]

12 Habentes igitur talem spem, multa fiducia utimur: 13 et non sicut Moyses ponebat velamen super faciem suam, ut non intenderent filii Israël in faciem ejus, quod evacuatur, 14 sed obtusi sunt sensus eorum. Usque in hodiernum enim diem, idipsum velamen in lectione veteris testamenti manet non revelatum (quoniam in Christo evacuatur), 15 sed usque in hodiernum diem, cum legitur Moyses, velamen positum est super cor eorum. 16 Cum autem conversus fuerit ad Dominum, auferetur velamen. 17 Dominus autem Spiritus est: ubi autem Spiritus Domini, ibi libertas. 18 Nos vero omnes, revelata facie gloriam Domini speculantes, in eamdem imaginem transformamur a claritate in claritatem, tamquam a Domini Spiritu.

[1] ‘A fresh attempt’; St Paul must have been accused, or must have thought that he was being accused, of dwelling too much on what he had done for the Corinthians.

[2] ‘By comparison’; literally, ‘in this part’, i.e. this partial manifestation.

[3] vv. 5-15: St Paul compares the position of the Christian missionary, announcing the new law of life, that is, the Gospel, with that of Moses announcing to the Jews the old law, by which sinners are condemned. Moses received the law on tables of stone; the Gospel must be thought of as engraved upon men’s hearts. We are told in Ex. 34.29-35 that Moses’ face shone with an unearthly radiance after he had conversed with God on Mount Sinai; for a time, he had to wear a veil, because the Israelites could not bear to look on this brightness. How much more do the faces of Christ’s ministers shine with the reflection of his glory! But they do not throw any veil over the glory they have witnessed; they grow in likeness to Christ. It is the Jews who wear a veil over their faces, listening to the law of Moses sabbath after sabbath and never learning to see the glory of Christ revealed there.

[4] vv. 17-18. Many different renderings have been given of these two verses, and it is perhaps impossible for us to ascertain the exact sense in which St Paul wrote them. It is not certain, in the Greek, whether ‘catch’ means ‘catch sight of’, or ‘reflect’.

Knox Translation Copyright © 2013 Westminster Diocese
Nihil Obstat. Father Anton Cowan, Censor.
Imprimatur. +Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster. 8th January 2012.
Re-typeset and published in 2012 by Baronius Press Ltd