PAUL, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to
the faith of the elect of God, and the knowledge of truth which leads
to godliness; (2)in hope of life eternal, which God, who cannot lie,
hath promised before time had a being; (3)but hath manifested in his
own appointed season his word by the preaching, with which I have been
entrusted, according to the command of our Saviour God; (4)to Titus, my
genuine son after the common faith, be grace, mercy, peace, from God
the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
(5)For this purpose I left thee behind me at Crete, that thou mightest
direct the regulations which remained to be executed, and that thou
shouldest appoint presbyters in every city, as I charged thee to do:
(6)if there be a man blameless, the husband of one wife, having
children who believe, not under an accusation or debauchery, or
disorderly conduct. (7)For a bishop ought to be irreproachable, as the
steward of God; not self-willed, not irritable, not addicted to wine,
not quarrelsome, not greedy of filthy lucre; (8)but the stranger's
host, the good man's friend, grave, just, holy, temperate; (9)firmly
attached to the faithful word, according to the doctrine delivered,
that he may be able to exhort with sound instruction and to confute the
opposers. (10)For there are many disorderly persons vainly talkative,
and under a spirit of delusion, especially some of the circumcised;
(11)whose mouths ought to be muzzled, who pervert whole families,
teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of base gain.
(12)One of them, a poet of their own nation, hath said, The Cretans are
always liars, wicked beasts, slothful gluttons. (13)This testimony is
true. For which cause rebuke them with severity, that they may be sound
in the faith; (14)not attending to Jewish fables, and injunctions of
men, who have turned away from the truth. (15)All things indeed are
clean to the clean: but to the defiled and to the unbelievers there is
nothing clean; but their very mind and conscience are defiled. (16)They
profess to know God; but in works deny him, being abominable and
disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.