You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you may ask the Father in My name He may give to you.
Therefore I thought it necessary to urge the brothers, that they should go before me to you, and should arrange in advance your generous gift, which you had previously promised, that this would be ready, thus as a blessing and not as grudgingly given.
For the love of money is a root of all evils, of which some by aspiring have strayed away from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
They have left behind the straight way and gone astray, having followed after the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
And by covetousness they will exploit you with fabricated words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction will not sleep.
Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and in the error of Balaam they have rushed for profit, and have perished in the rebellion of Korah.