For the overseer must be free from all charge against him as God's steward; not headstrong, not passionate, not disorderly through wine, not a striker, not seeking gain by base means;

but hospitable, a lover of goodness, discreet, just, pious, temperate,

who must have their mouths stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which ought not to be taught for the sake of base gain.

It was a Cretan--one of their own teachers--who said: 'Cretans are always liars, base brutes, and gluttonous idlers'; and his statement is true.

training us to renounce ungodliness and all the pleasures of this world, and to live sober, upright, and pious lives at the present time,

After I have sent Artemas or Tychicus to you, lose no time in joining me at Nicopolis; for I have decided to pass the winter there.