2 Corinthians
For it is unnecessary for me to write to you about this offering for the saints,
because I know your eagerness to help, which I boast about to those in
Macedonia. I tell them that you in Achaia have been prepared to give since last year,
and your zeal has stirred up most of them.
But I am sending these brothers so
that our boasting about you may not prove empty, and that you are prepared,
just as I said you would be.
Otherwise if any Macedonians should come with
me and find you not ready to send your gift, we (to say nothing of you) would be
embarrassed by my confident boasting!
So I thought it necessary to ask these
brothers to visit you in advance, and arrange ahead of time the gift
that you promised earlier, so that it would be ready as a generous gift, not
grudgingly given.
Remember this: the person who sows a little will reap a little; the person who sows
a lot will reap a lot.
Let each person give as he has determined in his mind, not grudgingly or under compulsion, because God loves a
cheerful giver.
And God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that you,
always having enough in everything, may overflow in every good work.
As
it is written, “The upright person scatters generously; he gives to the poor; his uprightness
remains forever.”
Now the One who provides seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply
your seed for sowing and enlarge the harvest of your uprightness.
You will
grow rich in every way so that you can always be generous, and your
generosity is producing through us thanksgiving to God.
For this service
which you are giving not only fully supplies the needs of the saints, but
overflows in much giving of thanks to God.
Because of this offering, they
will glorify God for your obedient confession of the Gospel of
Messiah
and for the generosity of your sharing with them and with all.
They will pray for you with great affection because of the exceeding grace of
God given to you.
Thanks be to God for His gift which is beyond description!
2 Corinthians