Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

What manner of man a bishop or priest ought to be, and how his wife and children should be. The qualities also required in a deacon or minister and in his wife.

3 This is a true saying: if a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good work. ² Yea and a bishop must be faultless, the husband of one wife, sober, discreet, respectable; who is welcoming toward others and giving of shelter; able to teach; ³ not drunken, no fighter; not given to the love of money, but gentle, abhorring quarrels, abhorring covetousness; ⁴ and one who rules his own house well, having his children under obedience with all respectfulness. ⁵ For if a man cannot manage his own house, how will he care for the congregation of God? ⁶ He may not be a young scholar, lest he swell and fall into the judgment of the evil speaker. ⁷ He must also be well reported of among those who are outside, lest he fall into rebuke and the snare of the evil speaker.

⁸ Likewise must deacons be honourable: not double-tongued, not given to much drinking, nor to the love of money, ⁹ but having the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.