Titus 1

Salutation

¹Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that is in accordance with godliness, ²in the hope of eternal life that God, who never lies, promised before the ages began^*—³in due time he revealed his word through the proclamation with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior,^*

⁴To Titus, my true child^a in the faith we share:

Grace^b and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.^*

Titus in Crete

⁵I left you behind in Crete for this reason, so that you should put in order what remained to be done and should appoint elders in every town, as I directed you:^{* 6}someone who is blameless, married only once,^c whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious.^{* 7}For a bishop,^d as God’s steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine or violent or greedy for gain,^{* 8}but he must be hospitable,^e a lover of goodness, self-controlled, upright, devout, and restrained, ⁹holding tightly to the trustworthy word of the teaching, so that he may be able both to exhort with sound instruction and to refute those who contradict it.

¹⁰There are also many rebellious people, idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision;^{* 11}they must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what it is not right to teach.^{* 12}It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said,

“Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.”

¹³That testimony is true. For this reason rebuke them sharply, so that they may become sound in the faith,^{* 14}not paying attention to Jewish myths or to commandments of those who reject the truth.^{* 15}To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.^{* 16}They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions; they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.^*