1Paul, a slave of God and a sent one of Jesus the Anointed One, according to the trust of God's chosen and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,
2in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before eternal times,
3and in His own seasons He revealed His word in the proclamation with which I myself was entrusted, according to the commandment of God our Savior;
4to Titus, my true child according to our common trust: Favor and wholeness from God the Father and the Lord Jesus the Anointed One our Savior.
5Because of this I left you in Crete, so that you may set in order the things lacking and may appoint elders in every town, as I myself directed you;
6if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having believing children, not under accusation of debauchery or insubordinate.
7For it behooves the overseer to be blameless, as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick tempered, not given to wine, not a striker, not greedy of base gain,
8but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined,
9holding the faithful word according to the teaching, that he may be able both to encourage with the sound teaching and to convict those who contradict it.
10For there are many insubordinate also, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,
11whom it is necessary to silence; who overthrow whole households, teaching things that they ought not, because of shameful gain.
12One of their own, a prophet, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.
13This testimony is true; for which cause rebuke them severely, so that they may be sound in the trust,
14not giving heed to Jewish myths and to the commandments of men turning away from the truth.
15All things are indeed clean to the clean; however, to those defiled and untrusting no thing is clean, but both their mind and their conscience have been defiled.
16They profess to know God, however by their works they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work.