Docs: Move version note before code examples in README

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: Claude4.0o

README.md

@@ -607,7 +607,7 @@ Both of these features ensure that our library can be seamlessly integrated into
 ### Maven and Gradle Integration
 
 To include in your project:
-
+> Replace `LATEST_VERSION` with the version shown here:
 [![Maven Central](https://img.shields.io/maven-central/v/com.cedarsoftware/java-util)](https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/com.cedarsoftware/java-util)
 
 ##### Gradle
@@ -624,8 +624,6 @@ implementation 'com.cedarsoftware:java-util:LATEST_VERSION'
 </dependency>
 ```
 
-> Replace `LATEST_VERSION` with the version shown in the badge above.
-
 ### 🚀 Framework Integration Examples
 
 For comprehensive framework integration examples including Spring, Jakarta EE, Spring Boot Auto-Configuration, Microservices, Testing, and Performance Monitoring, see **[frameworks.md](frameworks.md)**.