How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

2 Corinthians 3:3 → Ezekiel 11:19

Allusion

Later text

2 Corinthians 3:3BSB

It is clear that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Earlier text

Ezekiel 11:19BSB

And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh,

+ 2 more earlier texts

Earlier text

Ezekiel 36:26BSB

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.||||

Earlier text

2 Corinthians 3:3 to Ezekiel 36:26BSB

Open the passage to read it in full.

Significance

Paul alludes to Ezekiel 11:19 (and its parallel in 36:26) in 2 Corinthians 3:3, contrasting the old covenant written on "tablets of stone" (plaxin lithinais) with the new covenant written "on tablets of human hearts" (en plaxin kardiais sarkinais). Ezekiel's prophecy promised that God would replace Israel's "heart of stone" (leb ha'eben) with a "heart of flesh" (leb basar), enabling obedience through the Spirit. Paul's language precisely inverts the stone/flesh contrast: where Ezekiel spoke of removing stone hearts and giving flesh hearts, Paul speaks of moving from stone tablets to fleshly-heart tablets. This allusion, combined with the parallel reference to Exodus 31:18 (tablets of stone inscribed by God's finger) and Jeremiah 31:33 (law written on hearts), creates a three-text interpretive blend that defines the new covenant as the Spirit's internalization of God's will. The Corinthian believers themselves are living evidence that Ezekiel's prophecy has been fulfilled.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment + Longitudinal Theme

Linked Mentions 2

Intertextuality Pairs 1

2 Corinthians 3:3 to Ezekiel 36:26

Trajectory Tables 1

Covenant Violations (Prophetic Indictments) Trajectory Table