Book of Common Prayer

By David.

⁶ For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth. ⁷ Yahweh didn’t set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples; ⁸ but because Yahweh loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Know therefore that Yahweh your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments, ¹⁰ and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack to him who hates him. He will repay him to his face. ¹¹ You shall therefore keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances which I command you today, to do them.

1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ,^[a] according to the faith of God’s chosen ones and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, ² in hope of eternal life, which God, who can’t lie, promised before time began; ³ but in his own time revealed his word in the message with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior, ⁴ to Titus, my true child according to a common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.

⁵ I left you in Crete for this reason, that you would set in order the things that were lacking and appoint elders in every city, as I directed you— ⁶ if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, who are not accused of loose or unruly behavior. ⁷ For the overseer must be blameless, as God’s steward, not self-pleasing, not easily angered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain; ⁸ but given to hospitality, a lover of good, sober minded, fair, holy, self-controlled, ⁹ holding to the faithful word which is according to the teaching, that he may be able to exhort in the sound doctrine, and to convict those who contradict him.

¹⁰ For there are also many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, ¹¹ whose mouths must be stopped: men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for dishonest gain’s sake. ¹² One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and idle gluttons.” ¹³ This testimony is true. For this cause, reprove them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, ¹⁴ not paying attention to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. ¹⁵ To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. ¹⁶ They profess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

²⁹ The next day, he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold,^[a] the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me.’ ³¹ I didn’t know him, but for this reason I came baptizing in water, that he would be revealed to Israel.” ³² John testified, saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending like a dove out of heaven, and it remained on him. ³³ I didn’t recognize him, but he who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘On whomever you will see the Spirit descending and remaining on him is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ I have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”