This is a faithful saying: someone who seeks to be an overseer desires a good work. ²The overseer therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest, hospitable, good at teaching; ³not a drinker, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; ⁴one who rules his own house well, having children in subjection with all reverence; ⁵(for how could someone who doesn’t know how to rule his own house take care of God’s assembly?) ⁶not a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. ⁷Moreover he must have good testimony from those who are outside, to avoid falling into reproach and the snare of the devil.

⁸Servants, in the same way, must be reverent, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for money, ⁹holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. ¹⁰Let them also first be tested; then let them serve if they are blameless. ¹¹Their wives in the same way must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, and faithful in all things. ¹²Let servants be husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. ¹³For those who have served well gain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴These things I write to you, hoping to come to you shortly, ¹⁵but if I wait long, that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in God’s house, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

¹⁶Without controversy, the mystery of godliness is great: God was revealed in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.