Titus 1

¹ From Paul, servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ to bring those whom God has chosen to faith andto the knowledge of the truth that leads to true religion,

² and to give them the hope of the eternal life that was promised so long ago by God. He does not lie

³ and so, in due time, he made known his message by a proclamation which was entrusted to me by thecommand of God our Saviour.

⁴ To Titus, true child of mine in the faith that we share. Grace and peace from God the Father and fromChrist Jesus our Saviour.

⁵ The reason I left you behind in Crete was for you to organise everything that stil had to be done andappoint elders in every town, in the way that I told you,

⁶ that is, each of them must be a man of irreproachable character, husband of one wife, and his childrenmust be believers and not liable to be charged with disorderly conduct or insubordination.

⁷ The presiding elder has to be irreproachable since he is God's representative: never arrogant or hot-tempered, nor a heavy drinker or violent, nor avaricious;

⁸ but hospitable and a lover of goodness; sensible, upright, devout and self-control ed;

⁹ and he must have a firm grasp of the unchanging message of the tradition, so that he can be counted onboth for giving encouragement in sound doctrine and for refuting those who argue against it.

¹⁰ And in fact there are many people who are insubordinate, who talk nonsense and try to make othersbelieve it, particularly among those of the circumcision.

¹¹ They must be silenced: people of this kind upset whole families, by teaching things that they ought notto, and doing it for the sake of sordid gain.

¹² It was one of themselves, one of their own prophets, who said, 'Cretans were never anything but liars,dangerous animals, al greed and laziness';

¹³ and that is a true statement. So be severe in correcting them, and make them sound in the faith

¹⁴ so that they stop taking notice of Jewish myths and the orders of people who turn away from the truth.

¹⁵ To those who are pure themselves, everything is pure; but to those who have been corrupted and lackfaith, nothing can be pure -- the corruption is both in their minds and in their consciences.

¹⁶ They claim to know God but by their works they deny him; they are outrageously rebellious and quiteuntrustworthy for any good work.