Women in turn are to dress modestly and quietly in seemly garb; they are not to adorn themselves with plaits of hair, with gold or pearls or expensive finery,

Deacons in turn are to be serious men; they are not to be tale-bearers or addicted to drink or pilfering;

They too must be put on probation; after that, if they are above reproach, they can serve as deacons.

Deacons are only to be married once, and they must manage their children and households properly.

through plausible sophists who are seared in conscience ??3 men who prohibit marriage and insist on abstinence from foods which God created for believing men, who understand the Truth, to partake of with thanksgiving.

Let no one slight you because you are a youth, but set the believers an example of speech, behaviour, love, faith, and purity.

and thus are guilty of breaking their first troth to Him.

Presbyters who are efficient presidents are to be considered worthy of ample remuneration, particularly those who have the task of preaching and teaching:

Those who are guilty of sin you must expose in public, to overawe the others.

Some people's sins are notorious and call for judgment, but in some cases sin only comes out afterwards.

Good works are equally conspicuous; and even when they are not, they cannot escape notice for ever.

Let all servants who are under the yoke of slavery remember that their masters are entitled to perfect respect ??otherwise it will be a scandal to the Name of God and to our doctrine.

Those who have Christian believers as their masters must not take liberties with them because they are brothers; they must be all the better servants because those who get the good of their service are believers and beloved. This is what you are to teach and preach.

and constant friction between people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the Truth. They imagine religion is a paying concern.

Those who are eager to be rich get tempted and trapped in many senseless and pernicious propensities that drag men down to ruin and destruction.

You are aware that all the Asiatics have discarded me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.

if we are faithless, he remains faithful" ??for he cannot be untrue to himself.

Do your utmost to let God see that you at least are a sound workman, with no need to be ashamed of the way you handle the word of the Truth.

they have failed in the Truth by arguing that the resurrection has taken place already, and they are undermining some people's faith.

But the solid foundation laid by God remains, and this is its inscription: the Lord knows who are his, and 'let everyone who names the name of the Lord give up evil.'

In any great house there are indeed vessels not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for noble, some for menial service.

they may come to their senses again and escape the snare of the devil, as they are brought back to life by God to do his will.

Mark this, there are hard times coming in the last days.

who are always curious to learn and never able to attain the knowledge of the Truth.

For these guides of theirs are hostile to the Truth, just as Jannes and Jambres were hostile to Moses; they are depraved in mind and useless for all purposes of faith.

The last drops of my own sacrifice are falling; my time to go has come.

men who are above reproach, only once married, with children who believe and who are not liable to the charge of being profligate or insubordinate.

For there are plenty of insubordinate creatures who impose on people with their empty arguments, particularly those who have come over from Judaism;

they must be silenced, for they are undermining whole families by teaching objectionable doctrine for the base end of making money.

It has been said by one of themselves, by a prophet of their own, that ??"Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons."

For the pure all things are pure, but nothing is pure for the polluted and unbelieving; their very mind and conscience are polluted.

They profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds; they are detestable, disobedient, and useless for good work of any kind.

It is a sure saying. I want you to insist on this, that those who have faith in God must profess honest occupations. Such counsels are right and good for men.

But avoid foolish controversy, and let genealogies and dissensions and strife over the Law alone, for these are fruitless and futile.

All who are with me salute you. Salute those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all.

thou hast loved justice and hated lawlessness, therefore God, thy God, has consecrated thee with the oil of rejoicing beyond thy comrades' ??10 and, 'Thou didst found the earth at the beginning, O Lord, and the heavens are the work at thy hands;

Are not all angels merely spirits in the divine service, commissioned for the benefit of those who are to inherit salvation?

Besides, while Moses was faithful in every department of God's house as an attendant ??by way of witness to the coming revelation ??6 Christ is faithful as a Son over God's house. Now we are this house of God, if we will only keep confident and proud of our hope.

Therefore I grew exasperated with that generation, I said, 'They are always astray in their heart': They would not learn my ways;

Though by this time you should be teaching other people, you still need someone to teach you once more the rudimentary principles of the divine revelation. You are in need of milk, not of solid food.

For land which absorbs the rain that often falls on it, and bears plants that are useful to those for whom it is tilled, receives a blessing from God;

Those sons of Levi who receive the priestly office are indeed ordered by law to tithe the people (that is, their brothers), although the latter are descended from Abraham;

Were he on earth, he would not be a priest at all, for there are priests already to offer the gifts prescribed by Law

For as the Law has a mere shadow of the bliss that is to be, instead of representing the reality of that bliss, it never can perfect those who draw near with the same annual sacrifices that are perpetually offered.

As it is, they are an annual reminder of sins

He begins by saying, thou hast no desire for, thou takest no delight in, sacrifices and offerings and holocausts and sin-offerings (and these are what are offered in terms of the Law);

And it is by this will that we are consecrated, because Jesus Christ once for all has offered up his body.

to wait until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet.

Now where these are remitted, an offering for sin exists no longer.

We are not the men to shrink back and be lost, but to have faith and so to win our souls.

Now faith means we are confident of what we hope for, convinced of what we do not see.

Now people who speak in this way plainly show they are in search of a fatherland.

Discipline is the portion of all; if you get no discipline, then you are not sons but bastards.

Discipline always seems for the time to be a thing of pain, not of joy; but those who are trained by it reap the fruit of it afterwards in the peace of an upright life.

Remember prisoners, as if you were in prison yourselves; remember those who are being ill-treated, since you too are in the body.

For the bodies of the animals whose blood is taken into the holy Place by the high priest as a sin-offering, are burned outside the camp;

Do not forget beneficence and charity, either; these are the kind of sacrifices that are acceptable to God.

Obey your leaders, submit to them; for they are alive to the interests of your souls, as men who will have to account for their trust. Let their work be a joy to them and not a grief ??which would be a loss to yourselves.

all we are given is good, and all our endowments are faultless, descending from above, from the Father of the heavenly lights, who knows no change of rising and setting, who casts no shadow on the earth.

are you not drawing distinctions in your own minds and proving that you judge people with partiality?

Speak, act, as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom;

Look at ships too; for all their size and speed under stiff winds, they are turned by a tiny rudder wherever the mind of the steersman chooses.

Who among you is wise and learned? Let him show by his good conduct, with the modesty of wisdom, what his deeds are.

But if you are cherishing bitter jealousy and rivalry in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on that ??and be false to the truth.

One alone is the legislator, who passes sentence; it is He who is able to save and to destroy; who are you, to judge your neighbour?

Come now, you who say, "To-day or to-morrow we are going to such and such a city; we shall spend a year there trading and making money" ??14 you who know nothing about to-morrow! For what is your life? You are but a mist, which appears for a little and then vanishes.

But here you are, boasting in your proud pretensions! All such boasting is wicked.

your wealth lies rotting, and your clothes are moth-eaten;

Do not murmur against one another, brothers, lest you are judged; look, the Judge is standing at the very door!

You are born anew of immortal, not of mortal seed, by the living, lasting word of God;

come and, like living stones yourselves, be built into a spiritual house, to form a consecrated priesthood for the offering of those spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

But you are the elect race, the royal priesthood, the consecrated nation, the People who belong to Him, that you may proclaim the wondrous deeds of Him who has called you from darkness to his wonderful light ??10 you who once were no people and now are God's people, you who once were unpitied and now are pitied.

Conduct yourselves properly before pagans; so that for all their slander of you as bad characters, they may come to glorify God when you are put upon your trial, by what they see of your good deeds.

Servants, be submissive to your masters with perfect respect, not simply to those who are kind and reasonable but to the surly as well ??19 for it is a merit when from a sense of God one bears the pain of unjust suffering.

when they see how chaste and reverent you are.

You are not to adorn yourselves on the outside with braids of hair and ornaments of gold and changes of dress,

Thus Sara obeyed Abraham by calling him 'lord'. And you are daughters of Sara if you do what is right and yield to no panic.

In the same way you husbands must be considerate in living with your wives, since they are the weaker sex; you must honour them as heirs equally with yourselves of the grace of Life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

never paying back evil for evil, never reviling when you are reviled, but on the contrary blessing. For this is your vocation, to bless and to inherit blessing;

For the eyes of the Lord are on the upright, and his ears are open to their cry; but the face of the Lord is set against wrongdoers.

Even supposing you have to suffer for the sake of what is right, still you are blessed. Have no fear of their threats, do not let that trouble you,

(for this was why the gospel was preached to the dead as well, that while they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live as God lives in the spirit).

If anyone preaches, he must preach as one who utters the words of God; if anyone renders some service, it must be as one who is supplied by God with power, so that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. The glory and the dominion are his for ever and ever: Amen.

You are sharing what Christ suffered; so rejoice in it, that you may also rejoice and exult when his glory is revealed.

If you are denounced for the sake of Christ, you are blessed; for then the Spirit of glory and power, the Spirit of God himself, is resting on you.

So let those who are suffering by the will of God trust their souls to him, their faithful Creator, as they continue to do right.

Salute one another with a kiss of love. Peace be to you all who are in Christ [Jesus].

Hence I mean to keep on reminding you of this, although you are aware of it and are fixed in the Truth as it is;

particularly those who fall in with the polluting appetite of the flesh and despise the Powers celestial. Daring, presumptuous creatures! they are not afraid to scoff at the angelic Glories;

But those people! ??like irrational animals, creatures of mere instinct, born for capture and corruption, they scoff at what they are ignorant of; and like animals they will suffer corruption and ruin,

done out of the profits of their evil-doing. Pleasure for them is revelling in open daylight ??spots and blots, with their dissipated revelling, as they carouse in your midst! ??14 their eyes are full of harlotry, insatiable for sin; their own hearts trained to lust, they beguile unsteady souls. Accursed generation!

These people are waterless fountains and mists driven by a squall, for whom the nether gloom of darkness is reserved.

By talking arrogant futilities they beguile with the sensual lure of fleshly passion those who are just escaping from the company of misconduct ??19 promising them freedom, when they are themselves enslaved to corruption (for a man is the slave of whatever overpowers him).

but the present heavens and earth are treasured up by the same word for fire, reserved for the day when the impious are doomed and destroyed.

Beloved, you must not ignore this one fact, that with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a single day.

Now as all things are thus to be dissolved, what holy and pious men ought you to be in your behaviour,

Then, beloved, as you are expecting this, be eager to be found by him unspotted and unblemished in serene assurance.

Now, beloved, you are forewarned: mind you are not carried away by the error of the lawless and so lose your proper footing;

We are writing this to you that our own joy may be complete.

If we say, 'We have fellowship with him,' when we live and move in darkness, then we are lying, we are not practising the truth;