¹ IT is a true saying, If a man seeks the office of a bishop, he desireth a laudable employment.

² A bishop then must be irreprehensible, the husband of one wife, temperate, sagacious, respectable, hospitable, well qualified for teaching;

³ not addicted to wine, not using hard words or blows, not greedy of base gain; but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money;

⁴ presiding over his own family with propriety, having his children under subjection with all gravity of behaviour:

⁵ for if a man knoweth not how to order his own family, how shall he take proper care of the church of God?

⁶ Not a new convert, lest he be puffed up, and fall into the devil’s crime.

⁷ He must also have a fair character from those who are without, that he may not fall into reproach, and into the snare of the devil.

⁸ The deacons also in like manner must be grave, not doubletongued, not addicting themselves to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;

⁹ holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.

¹⁰ And let these also be first proved, and if found blameless, then let them enter on the deacon’s office.

¹¹ Their wives in like manner must be grave women, not addicted to scandal, sober, faithful in all things.

¹² Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ordering well their children and their own families.

¹³ For they who discharge the office of a deacon with propriety, acquire to themselves a respectable station in the church, and great boldness in the faith which is in Jesus Christ.

¹⁴ These things I write to thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly:

¹⁵ but should I be delayed, that thou mayest know how it behoveth thee to conduct thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the pedestal of truth.

¹⁶ And confessedly great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified by the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.