But I am sending the brothers(A) in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow, but that you may be ready, as I said you would be.(B) For if any Macedonians(C) come with me and find you unprepared, we—not to say anything about you—would be ashamed of having been so confident. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers(D) to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift,(E) not as one grudgingly given.(F)

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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:

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.

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.

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But (A)I am sending[a] the brothers so that our boasting about you may not prove empty in this matter, so that you may be ready, (B)as I said you would be. Otherwise, if some Macedonians (C)come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—for being so confident. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the (D)gift[b] you have promised, so that it may be ready (E)as a willing gift, (F)not as an exaction.[c]

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Corinthians 9:3 Or I have sent
  2. 2 Corinthians 9:5 Greek blessing; twice in this verse
  3. 2 Corinthians 9:5 Or a gift expecting something in return; Greek greed