Keep before you, as an example of sound teaching, all that you learnt from me as you listened with that faith and love which come from union with Christ Jesus.

But you, Timothy, were a close observer of my teaching, my conduct, my purposes, my faith, my forbearance, my love, and my patient endurance,

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Do not neglect the divine gift within you, which was given you, amid many a prediction, when the hands of the Officers of the Church were laid on your head.

Run the great race of the Faith, and win the Immortal Life. It was for this that you received the Call, and, in the presence of many witnesses, made the great profession of Faith.

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Guard by the help of the Holy Spirit, who is within us, the glorious trust that has been committed to you.

This, then, is the charge that I lay upon you, Timothy, my Child, in accordance with what was predicted of you--Fight the good fight in the spirit of those predictions,

Never ordain any one hastily, and take no part in the wrong-doing of others. Keep your life pure.

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and a Servant of the Lord should never quarrel. He ought, on the contrary, to be courteous to every one, a skillful teacher, and forbearing.

Then he added: "So every Teacher of the Law, who has received instruction about the Kingdom of Heaven, is like a householder who produces from his stores things both new and old."

The Presiding-Officer should be a man of blameless character; a faithful husband; living a temperate, discreet, and well-ordered life; hospitable, and a skillful teacher,

Put all this before the Brethren, and you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, sustained by the precepts of the Faith and of that Good Teaching by which you have guided your life.

My reason for leaving you in Crete was that you might put in order what had been left unsettled, and appoint Officers of the Church in the various towns, as I myself directed you.