I know also, my God, that You try the heart, and have pleasure in uprightness. I, in the uprightness of my heart, have willingly offered all these things. And now I have seen with joy Your people who are present here to offer willingly to You.
Who serves as a soldier at his own wages at any time? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock and does not partake of the milk of the flock?
Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brothers that they would go forward to you, and make up beforehand your blessing, it having been promised that this would be ready, thus as a matter of blessing, and not as of covetousness.