9For it is unnecessary for me to write to you concerning the ministry to the saints, ²because I know your readiness to help, concerning which I keep on boasting to the Macedonians about you, that Achaia has been ready to help since last year, and your zeal has stirred up the majority of them. ³But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you would not prove to be empty in this case, so that you may be prepared just as I was saying, ⁴lest somehow if Macedonians should come with me and find you unprepared, we—not to speak of you^a—would be humiliated in connection with this project. ⁵Therefore I considered it necessary to urge the brothers that they should go on ahead to you and make arrangements in advance for your generous gift that was promised previously, so this would be prepared as a generous gift and not as grudgingly granted.

⁶Now the point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. ⁷Each one should give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly^b or from compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸And God is able to cause all grace to abound to you, so that in everything at all times, because you^* have enough of everything, you may overflow in every good work. ⁹Just as it is written,

“He scattered widely, he gave to the poor;

his righteousness remains forever^c.”^d

¹⁰Now the one who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed, and will cause the harvest of your righteousness to grow, ¹¹being made rich in every way for all generosity, which is producing through us thanksgiving to God, ¹²because the service of this ministry is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but also is overflowing through many expressions of thanksgiving to God. ¹³Through the proven character of this service they will glorify God because of the submission of your confession to the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your participation toward them and toward everyone, ¹⁴and they are longing for you in their prayers for you, because of the surpassing grace of God to you. ¹⁵Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

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Footnotes

aLiterally “so that we do not speak about you”; some manuscripts have “so that I do not speak about you”
bLiterally “out of sorrow”
*Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“have”) which is understood as causal
cLiterally “for the age”
dA quotation from Ps 112:9