I thought it necessary, therefore, to exhort the brothers to go to you before, and to make ready your free gift before announced, that it may be ready as a free gift and not as an exaction.

for I know how ready you are, and am always boasting about you to the Macedonians, telling them that Greece has been ready for a year past; and your zeal has been a spur to the majority of them.

and I sent the brethren, that our boasting on your behalf may not be made vain in this respect; that, according as I said, ye may be ready,

in the places beyond you to proclaim good news, not in another's line in regard to the things made ready, to boast;

Lo, a third time I am ready to come unto you, and I will not be a burden to you, for I seek not yours, but you, for the children ought not for the parents to lay up, but the parents for the children,

And {we are ready} to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is completed.

And not that only, but who was also chosen by the churches to travel with us with this grace, which is administered by us to the glory of the same Lord, and declaration of your ready mind:

For unto their power, I bear them witness, and above their power, they were voluntarily ready [to give]:

For if there is first a ready mind, a man is acceptable according to what he hath, and not according to what he hath not.

For he received in deed the exhortation, but being more diligent, of his own ready mind he went unto you.

For if any Macedonians come with me and find you not ready, shame would come upon me (not to speak of you) in respect to this confidence.

I am not "commending myself to you again," but I am giving you an occasion of boasting on my behalf, so that you may have an answer ready for those who boast in externals, and not in the heart.