1 It is really superfluous for me to write to you about this service which is being rendered to God's people,
2 for I know your readiness to help in it. I am boasting of you about it to the Macedonians, reminding them that Greece has been ready since last year, and your enthusiasm has stimulated the most of them.
3 But I send the brothers that in this matter my boasting of you may not turn out to be an idle boasting, that you all may be ready, as I have told them you will be,
4 to keep me -- not to mention you -- from being humiliated for having such confidence in you, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready.
5 So I have thought it necessary to urge these brothers to visit you ahead of me and get your promised love-offering ready beforehand, so as to have it ready as a real love-offering, not as one grasped and grudgingly given.
6 Now this is the way it is: Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly too, but whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully too.
7 Each must give what he has purposed in his heart to give, not sorrowfully or under compulsion, for it is the happy giver that God loves.
8 And God is able to make your every spiritual blessing overflow for you, so that you will always have in every situation an entire sufficiency and so overflow for every good cause;
9 as the Scripture says: "He has generously given to the poor; His deeds of charity go on forever."
10 He who always supplies the sower with seed and the eater with bread will supply you with seed and multiply it and enlarge the harvest which your deeds of charity yield.
11 In every way you will grow richer and richer so as to give with perfect liberality, which will through me result in thanksgiving to God for it.
12 Because the service rendered by this sacred offering is not only fully supplying the needs of God's people, but it is also running over with many thanks to God for it.
13 For through the test you get by doing this service you will continue praising God for your fidelity to your confession of the good news of Christ, and for the liberality of your contributions to them and all others;
14 and so in their prayers for you they will continue longing for you, because of God's surpassing favor shown you.
15 Thank God for His unspeakable gift!