1Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s chosen ones and the knowledge of the truth that accords with godliness,
2in hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before times eternal,
3and in his own times revealed his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the command of God our Savior—
4To Titus, my true child according to a common faith: grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
5For this reason I left you behind in Crete, so that you might set right what was left unfinished and appoint elders in each city, as I directed you—
6if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children who are not open to a charge of dissipation or insubordinate.
7For the overseer must be blameless as God’s steward: not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for shameful gain,
8but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, disciplined,
9holding firmly to the faithful word as taught, so that he may be able both to exhort with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it.
10For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,
11who must be silenced. They are overturning whole households by teaching things they ought not, for the sake of shameful gain.
12One of them, their own prophet, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”
13This testimony is true. For this reason rebuke them sharply, so that they may be sound in the faith,
14not paying attention to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
15To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; rather, both their mind and their conscience are defiled.
16They profess to know God, but by their works they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work.
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