Titus 1:12–14

¹⁸For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

²Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

²⁸For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

¹⁵Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

¹²But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

¹¹Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

⁸Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

⁹Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

¹⁰But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

¹¹Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

¹²These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

¹³Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

²⁰Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.

²That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.

²Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

¹⁵These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

¹⁰Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.

⁵Open rebuke is better than secret love.

⁶If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.

⁸For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season.

⁹Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.

¹⁰For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

¹¹For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

¹²Wherefore, though I wrote unto you, I did it not for his cause that had done the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear unto you.

⁵Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.

⁸⁰Let my heart be sound in thy statutes; that I be not ashamed.

¹⁷¶ Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.

⁴And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

²²Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

⁹But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

²²But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

⁹But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

⁴Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.

⁵Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:

⁶From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling;

⁷Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.

¹³¶ Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

⁷Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

²⁵See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: