¹Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s chosen ones and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, ²in hope of eternal life, which God, who can’t lie, promised before time began; ³but in his own time revealed his word in the message with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior, ⁴to Titus, my true child according to a common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. ⁵I left you in Crete for this reason, that you would set in order the things that were lacking and appoint elders in every city, as I directed you— ⁶if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, who are not accused of loose or unruly behavior. ⁷For the overseer must be blameless, as God’s steward, not self-pleasing, not easily angered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain; ⁸but given to hospitality, a lover of good, sober minded, fair, holy, self-controlled, ⁹holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict those who contradict him. ¹⁰For there are also many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, ¹¹whose mouths must be stopped: men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for dishonest gain’s sake. ¹²One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and idle gluttons.” ¹³This testimony is true. For this cause, reprove them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, ¹⁴not paying attention to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. ¹⁵To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. ¹⁶They profess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.