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📚For concerning this service to the saints, it is unnecessary for me to write to you. 2 📚For I know your readiness of mind, about which I speak with pride concerning you to the Macedonians, that Achaia was ready a year ago. And your zeal has inspired most of them. 3 📚✭Yet I have sent the brethren, so that our speaking proudly about you would not be in vain in this regard, but that, as I said, you may be ready, 4 📚thinking that if the Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we (not to say, you) would be ashamed about this confident boasting. 5 📚✭Therefore I thought it necessary to urge the brethren to go in advance to you, and prepare your generous gift, which you previously promised, that it might be ready, as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging duty.Wonderful results of generous giving
6 📚✭But this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows abundantly will also reap abundantly. 7 📚✭Everyone should give as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly, or from compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 📚✭And God is able to make all grace flow to you in abundance, so that you, always having all sufficiency in everything, may have an abundance for every good work. 9 📚✭As it is written,
He has dispersed abroad;
he has given to the poor;
his righteousness remains for ever.
10 📚✭Now may he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, multiply the seed you have sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness, 11 📚while you are richly furnished in everything for complete generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us.
12 📚For the administration of this service not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also overflows in much thanksgiving to God, 13 📚✭while, because of what this service proves, they glorify God for your obedience which accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generous sharing with them, and with everyone. 14 📚And in their prayers for you, they will feel strong affection for you because of the overflowing grace of God in you.
15 📚✭Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.