¹⁰ Then you shall keep the ^(A)Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give ^(B)as the Lord your God blesses you.

^2 (A)On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.

⁵ Therefore I thought it necessary to ^[a]exhort the brethren to go to you ahead of time, and prepare your generous gift beforehand, which you had previously promised, that it may be ready as a matter of generosity and not as a ^[b]grudging obligation.

The Cheerful Giver

^6 (A)But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows ^[c]bountifully will also reap ^[d]bountifully. ⁷ So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, ^(B)not grudgingly or of ^[e]necessity; for ^(C)God loves a cheerful giver. ^8 (D)And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. ⁹ As it is written:

¹⁰ Now ^[f]may He who ^(F)supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, ^[g]supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your ^(G)righteousness, ¹¹ while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, ^(H)which causes thanksgiving through us to God.

¹⁰ And in this ^(A)I give advice: ^(B)It is to your advantage not only to be doing what you began and ^(C)were desiring to do a year ago;

Promised Blessing

¹⁵ ‘And now, carefully ^(A)consider from this day forward: from before stone was laid upon stone in the temple of the Lord— ¹⁶ since those days, ^(B)when one came to a heap of twenty ephahs, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty baths from the press, there were but twenty. ^17 (C)I struck you with blight and mildew and hail ^(D)in all the labors of your hands; ^(E)yet you did not turn to Me,’ says the Lord. ¹⁸ ‘Consider now from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from ^(F)the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid—consider it: ^19 (G)Is the seed still in the barn? As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yielded fruit. But from this day I will ^(H)bless you.’ ”