1

For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you:

2

For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago and your zeal hath provoked very many.

3

Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf that, as I said, ye may be ready:

4

Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.

5

Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as [a matter of] bounty, and not as [of] covetousness.