¹From Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and acknowledgment of the truth which is in accordance with godliness, ²in hope of age-abiding life (which God, who does not lie, promised before the durations of the ages ³and made his word manifest in his own seasons by the preaching of that with which I have been entrusted according to the commandment of God our saviour), ⁴to Titus, a genuine child in a shared faith, grace, mercy and peace from God the father and Lord, Jesus Christ our saviour. ⁵I left you in Crete for this reason: so that you might put the remaining things in order, and appoint elders in various cities, as I instructed you, ⁶to see if anyone is unimpeachable, a husband of one wife, having believing children who are not culpable of irresponsibility or are unruly, ⁷because an overseer must be unimpeachable, as a steward of God's, not presumptuous, not irascible, not over-fond of wine, not violent, not shamefully greedy of gain, ⁸but hospitable, loving good, temperate, just, devout, self-controlled, ⁹holding fast to the faithful doctrinal word in order that he may be competent to both give encouragement in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it. ¹⁰For there are many also who are unruly, idle talkers and deluders, especially those of the circumcision, ¹¹who need to be silenced, the kind who overturn whole households, teaching things which they should not, for the sake of shameful gain. ¹²A certain one of them, a prophet of their own, said, “The Cretans have always been liars, wicked beasts, idle gluttons.” ¹³This testimony is true. For this reason censure them sharply, in order that they may be sound in the faith, ¹⁴not heeding Judaic fables, or commandments of men who are turning away from the truth. ¹⁵Everything is clean to the clean, but to the defiled and unbelievers nothing is clean, and even both their mind and conscience are defiled. ¹⁶They profess to know God, but by their works they deny it, being abominable and disobedient, and unqualified for any good work.