3:1 Do we begin again from the beginning to show you who we are? or need we, as some [others], letters of commendation to you, or [letters] of commendation from you?
3:2 The only letter of commendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts, all men can read it and recognize our good work among you.
3:3 [Forasmuch as you are] manifestly declared to be the letter of Mashiach ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Ruach of the living Elohim (אלהים); not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
3:4 And such trust have we through Mashiach toward Elohim (אלהים):
3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency [is] of Elohim (אלהים);
3:6 He has also qualified us to be ministers of a renewed covenant, a spiritual promise, not a written one. Clearly, what was written brings death, but the Spirit brings life.
3:7 But if the ministration of death, written [and] engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the Benai Yisrael could not steadfastly behold the face of Mosheh for the glory of his countenance; which [glory] was to be done away:
3:8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
3:9 For if the ministration of condemnation [be] glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
3:10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excells
3:11 For if that which is done away [was] glorious, much more that which remaineth [is] glorious.
3:12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
3:13 And not as Mosheh, [which] put a veil over his face, that the Benai Yisrael could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
3:14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remains the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old covenant; which [veil] is done away in Mashiach.
3:15 But even to this day, when Mosheh is read, the veil is upon their heart.
3:16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to YEHOVAH (יהוה), the veil shall be taken away.
3:17 Now YEHOVAH (יהוה) Himself is Spirit: and where the Spirit of YEHOVAH (יהוה) [is], there [is] liberty.
3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of YEHOVAH (יהוה), are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of YEHOVAH (יהוה).
Paulos has been emphasizing that Mashiach is the Key to the Tenakh. The Tenakh are intelligible only when understood as predicting and prefiguring Mashiach. Having the knowledge of Mashiach removes the veil from the Tenakh. Direct access