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there is no need for me to write to you about the ministry to the saints. 2 For all I know your willingness to help, and I have been boasting about you to the Macedonians, telling them that Achaia has been ready to give since last year; and your zeal has stirred up most of them to action. 3 But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter will not prove empty, but that you would be prepared, as I said you would. 4 For if any Macedonians should come with me and find you unprepared, we, to say nothing of you, would be ashamed of having been so openly confident. 5 So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you promised, so that it will be ready as a generous gift, and not as one only given grudgingly.
6 Remember this: the person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each of you should give what he has decided in his heart to you, not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is unable to make all grace abound toward you, so that by always having all that you need, you may excel in every good work. 9 As it is written:
“He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;
His righteousness endures forever”.
10 Now He who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will also supply and multiply your store of seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way for all your generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us.
12 This service you perform is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but it is also overflowing with many expressions of thanksgiving to God. 13 Through this service by which your ministry is proven, people will glorify God for the obedience that accompanies your confession to the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And when they pray for you, their hearts will long for you because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.