Titus 1:5–16

⁵For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou mightest go on to set right what remained unordered, and establish elders in each city, as I had ordered thee:

⁶if any one be free from all charge against him, husband of one wife, having believing children not accused of excess or unruly. ⁷For the overseer must be free from all charge against him as God’s steward; not headstrong, not passionate, not disorderly through wine, not a striker, not seeking gain by base means; ⁸but hospitable, a lover of goodness, discreet, just, pious, temperate, ⁹clinging to the faithful word according to the doctrine taught, that he may be able both to encourage with sound teaching and refute gainsayers. ¹⁰For there are many and disorderly vain speakers and deceivers of people’s minds, specially those of the circumcision, ¹¹who must have their mouths stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which ought not to be taught for the sake of base gain. ¹²One of themselves, a prophet of their own, has said, Cretans are always liars, evil wild beasts, lazy gluttons. ¹³This testimony is true; for which cause rebuke them severely, that they may be sound in the faith, ¹⁴not turning their minds to Jewish fables and commandments of men turning away from the truth. ¹⁵All things are pure to the pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. ¹⁶They profess to know God, but in works deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and found worthless as to every good work.