Text -- 2 Corinthians 9:1-5 (NET)

Preparing the Gift

9:1 For it is not necessary for me to write you about this service to the saints, 9:2 because I know your eagerness to help. I keep boasting to the Macedonians about this eagerness of yours, that Achaia has been ready to give since last year, and your zeal to participate has stirred up most of them. 9:3 But I am sending these brothers so that our boasting about you may not be empty in this case, so that you may be ready just as I kept telling them. 9:4 For if any of the Macedonians should come with me and find that you are not ready to give, we would be humiliated (not to mention you) by this confidence we had in you. 9:5 Therefore I thought it necessary to urge these brothers to go to you in advance and to arrange ahead of time the generous contribution you had promised, so this may be ready as a generous gift and not as something you feel forced to do.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: 2Co 9:1

¹ tn Or “it is superfluous.”

² tn Or “this ministry,” “this contribution.”

NET Notes: 2Co 9:2

¹ tn The words “to help” are not in the Greek text but are implied.

² tn Grk “concerning which I keep boasting to the Macedonians about you.” A new sentence was started here and the translation was simplified by removing the relative clause and repeating the antecedent “this eagerness of yours.”

³ tn The words “to give” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

⁴ tn The words “to participate” are not in the Greek text but are implied.

⁵ sn Most of them is a reference to the Macedonians (cf. v. 4).

NET Notes: 2Co 9:3

¹ tn This verb has been translated as an epistolary aorist.

² tn That is, ready with the collection for the saints.

NET Notes: 2Co 9:4

¹ tn Or “be disgraced”; Grk “be put to shame.”

² tn Grk “by this confidence”; the words “we had in you” are not in the Greek text, but are supplied as a necessary clarification for the English reader.

NET Notes: 2Co 9:5

¹ tn Grk “the blessing.”

² tn Grk “a blessing.”

³ tn Grk “as a covetousness”; that is, a gift given grudgingly or under compulsion.