Chapter 1

¹Paul, a slave of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to arouse faith in those whom God has chosen, and the comprehension of religious truth, ²in the hope of eternal life, which God who never lies promised ages ago, ³and revealed at the proper time in his message, through the preaching with which I have been intrusted at the command of God our Savior, ⁴to Titus, my true child in our common faith; God our Father and Christ Jesus our Savior bless you and give you peace.

⁵I left you behind in Crete expressly to correct what defects there were, and to appoint elders in each town, as I directed you— ⁶men of irreproachable character, who have been married only once, whose children are Christians, free from any suspicion of profligacy or disobedience. ⁷For as God’s overseer a superintendent must be irreproachable, not arrogant or quick-tempered or given to drink or pugnacious or addicted to dishonest gain, ⁸but hospitable, a lover of goodness, sensible, upright, of holy life, self-controlled, ⁹standing by the message that can be relied on, just as he was taught it, so that he may be qualified both to encourage others with wholesome teaching and to show the error of those who oppose him.

¹⁰For there are many undisciplined people, who deceive themselves with their empty talk, especially those of the party of circumcision. ¹¹They must be silenced, for such men upset whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach, for the sake of dishonest gain. ¹²It was a Cretan, a prophet of their own, who said,

“Cretans are always liars, savage brutes, lazy gluttons,”

¹³and that statement is true. Therefore correct them rigorously, to make them have a healthy faith, ¹⁴and not study Jewish fictions or commands given by men who reject the truth. ¹⁵To the pure everything is pure, but to the evil-minded and unbelieving nothing is pure, but their very minds and consciences are unclean. ¹⁶They profess to know God, but they disown him by what they do; they are detestable, disobedient men, worthless for any good purpose.