for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and the love which ye showed toward his name, in that ye ministered unto the saints, and still do minister.
Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to {\i the will of} God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
I thought it necessary therefore to entreat the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your aforepromised bounty, that the same might be ready as a matter of bounty, and not of extortion.\par
Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and {\i that} your fruit should abide: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle {\i fire on} mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.
And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not.
Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat; my soul desireth the first-ripe fig.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.\par