Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

For I Have Boasted of Your Eagerness To Others, So I Want You Ready When I Come

9 For indeed, it is superfluous for me to write to you concerning the ministry^[a] to the saints. ² For I know your eagerness, which I am boasting about you to the Macedonians— that “Achaia has been prepared [to give] since last year”. And your zeal stirred-up the majority. ³ But I sent the brothers in order that our boast about you might not be made-empty in this respect: in order that, just as I was saying, you may be prepared, ⁴ that we should not somehow be put-to-shame (that I not say you) in this confidence^[b] if Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared. ⁵ Therefore I regarded it necessary to urge the brothers that they go-ahead to you and prepare-beforehand your previously-promised blessing^[c], that this may be ready thus as a blessing and not as greediness^[d].