NIV
Titus 1
- 1<pb/>Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness—
- 2in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
- 3and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,
- 4<pb/>To Titus, my true son in our common faith: <pb/>Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
- 5<pb/>The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint<f>[1]</f> elders in every town, as I directed you.
- 6An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe<f>[2]</f> and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
- 7Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.
- 8Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.
- 9He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
- 10<pb/>For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group.
- 11They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain.
- 12One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”<f>[3]</f>
- 13This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith
- 14and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth.
- 15To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
- 16They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.