1 Timothy 3

Revised Geneva Translation

3 This is a true saying: If anyone desires the office of an overseer, he desires a worthy work.

² Therefore, an overseer must be blameless - the husband of one wife, sober, temperate, modest, a lover of strangers, able to teach -

³ neither a drunkard nor a brawler nor given to greed, but gentle, peace-loving and without avarice.

⁴ One who rules his own house well, having obedient children under him with all respect.

⁵ For if anyone cannot rule his own house, how shall he care for the Church of God?

⁶ He may not be a young scholar, lest he (being puffed up) falls into the condemnation of the devil.

⁷ He must also be of good reputation, even among outsiders, lest he fall into rebuke and the snare of the devil.

⁸ Likewise, deacons must be honorable—not duplicitous or given to much wine or to greed—

⁹ holding to the mystery of the faith in pure conscience.

¹⁰ And let them be tested first, then let them minister (if they are found blameless).

¹¹ Likewise, their wives must also be honorable (not slanderers), sober, and faithful in all things.

¹² Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, and such as can rule their children and their own households well.

¹³ For those who have ministered well gain a good standing for themselves, and great liberty in the faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴ These things I write to you, hoping to come to you very shortly;

¹⁵ but if I am delayed, so that you may still know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God (which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth).

¹⁶ And admittedly, the mystery of godliness is great: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in Glory.