unfoldingWord® Translation Questions
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| Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of the chosen people of God and knowledge of the truth that agrees with godliness, | I, Paul, {write this letter to you, Titus. I} am a servant of God and a representative of Jesus the Messiah. God sent me to teach the people whom he has chosen as his own to trust him more. I work to help his people to know what is true, so that they can live in a way that pleases God. |
His purpose was to establish the faith of God’s chosen people and to establish the knowledge of the truth.
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| with the certain hope of eternal life that the non-lying God promised before all the ages of time. | His people can learn how to live like this because they are confident that God will cause them to live forever. Even before the world began, God promised to cause us to live forever, and God does not lie. |
He promised it to them before all the ages of time.
No.
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| But at the right time, he revealed his word by the proclamation, the one I was entrusted with by the command of God our Savior. | Then, in God’s own timing, he communicated his plan through this message that he trusted me to preach. I do this in order to obey the command of God, who saves us. |
God entrusted it to the apostle Paul.
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| To Titus, a true son in a common faith. Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. | Titus, you have become like a real son to me because we both now believe in Jesus the Messiah. May God the Father and the Messiah Jesus who saves us continue to be kind to you and keep you peaceful. |
Titus was like a true son to Paul because of their common faith.
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| For this purpose I left you in Crete, that you might set in order the things not yet being complete and ordain elders in every city as I directed you— | I left you on the Island of Crete for this reason: that you do the work that is still unfinished and also appoint elders {for the group of believers} in every city, just as I told you to do. |
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| if anyone is blameless, a husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of reckless behavior or rebellion. | Now every elder must be someone whom no one can criticize. He must also have just one wife, his children must trust in God, and people must not consider his children to be out of control or disobedient. |
He must be the husband of one wife and have faithful children who are not accused of reckless behavior or rebellion.
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| For the overseer must be blameless, as a household manager of God, not arrogant, not easily angered, not addicted to wine, not a brawler, not greedy. | Everyone who leads God’s people is like the person who manages the servants and property of someone else, but he is doing this for God. So it is necessary for this person to have a good reputation. He must not be proud and he must not get angry quickly. He must not be an alcoholic, not someone who likes to fight and argue, and not a greedy man. |
He must not be arrogant or easily angered or addicted to wine or a brawler or greedy.
He is like God’s household manager.
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| Instead, he must be hospitable, a friend of what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-controlled. | Rather than that, he must welcome strangers and love the things that are good. He must always act sensibly and treat other people in a fair and honest manner. He must always act in a way that is right for someone who is devoted to God and he must always control his emotions. |
An elder should be hospitable, a friend of what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, and self-controlled.
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| He must hold tightly to the trustworthy message that is in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to encourage others with sound teaching and to rebuke the ones opposing {him}. | He must always believe the true things that we have taught him, and he must live according to them. He must do this so that he can persuade people to live like this too, and so that he can correct people if they do not want to live like this. |
He must hold tightly to it, and thus, be able to encourage and rebuke others.
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| For there are many rebellious people, empty talkers and deceivers, especially the ones from the circumcision. | I tell you these things because there are many people who refuse to obey those who are in authority over them. What these people say has no value. They persuade people to believe wrong things. The people who are the most like this are the ones who tell all followers of the Messiah to become circumcised. |
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| It is necessary to stop them. They are upsetting whole households, teaching what they should not for the sake of shameful profit. | You and the leaders whom you appoint must prevent such people from teaching the believers. They are teaching things that they should not teach, causing entire families to believe wrong things. They only do it so that people will give them money. This is very shameful! |
They were upsetting whole households.
They wanted shameful profit.
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| One of them, of their own prophets, has said, “Cretans {are} always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies.” | One man of Crete, someone his people thought was a prophet, said, “Cretans frequently lie to each other! They are like dangerous wild animals! They are lazy and always eat too much food.” |
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| This testimony is true. For this reason, rebuke them severely, so that they may be sound in the faith, | What he said is true, so correct them forcefully so that they may believe and teach correct things about God. |
He must rebuke them severely so they might be sound in the faith.
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| not paying any attention to Jewish myths or to commands of people turning away from the truth. | In order to believe correct things about God, they must stop living according to stories invented by the Jews and commandments that did not come from God. These commandments came from people who have stopped obeying what is true. |
They should not pay attention to Jewish myths and to commandments of men.
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| All things {are} pure to the ones {who are} pure. But to the ones having been corrupted and unbelieving, nothing {is} pure, but both their minds and consciences have been corrupted. | If some people only want to do or think about doing good things, then everything that they do is good. But if people are wicked and do not believe in the Messiah Jesus, everything that they do is bad. Such people’s way of thinking has been ruined. They do not even feel guilty when they do what is evil. |
Both his mind and conscience are corrupted.
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| They profess to know God, but they deny {him} by their actions, being detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work. | Even though they claim to know God, what they do shows that they do not know him. They are disgusting. They disobey God and can do nothing good for him. |
He denies God through his actions.
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| But you, speak what fits with sound teaching. | But as for you, Titus, teach people the things that agree with what you know is true about God. |
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| Older men, to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, {and} in perseverance. | Tell the older men that they must control themselves at all times, that they must live in a way that other people respect, and that they must act sensibly. Tell them that they must also firmly believe the true things about God, love others truly, and do all these things even when it is difficult. |
They should be temperate, dignified, sensible, and sound in faith, in love, and in perseverance.
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| Older women, likewise, reverent in behavior, not slanderers and not enslaved to much wine, teachers of what is good, | Tell the older women, like the men, to live so that everyone knows that they respect God very much. Tell them that they must not say mean or false things about other people, and that they must not be addicted to drinking a lot of wine. Instead, they should teach others what is good. |
They should be reverent, sober, not be slanderers, be teachers of what is good.
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| so that they may train the younger women to be lovers of their husbands, lovers of their children, | In this way, they will be able to instruct the younger women to love their own husbands and children. |
They should teach them to love and obey their husbands, and to love their children.
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| sensible, pure, good housekeepers, {and} subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God may not be insulted. | The older women should also teach the younger women to control what they say and do, not to act in a wrong way toward any man, to work well at home, and to do what their husbands tell them. They should do all these things so that no one can mock God’s message to us. |
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| In the same way, exhort the younger men to be sensible. | As for the younger men, urge them likewise to control themselves well. |
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| In everything present yourself {as} an example of good works. In the teaching, incorruption, dignity, | You yourself must continually do what is good so that others will see what they should also be doing. When you teach the believers, make sure that everything you say is true and say it in a way that they will respect. |
In his teaching, he should be uncorrupted, act with dignity, and deliver a sound message that is above criticism.
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| {with} a sound message {that is} above criticism, so that the opponent may be ashamed, having nothing bad to say about us. | Teach people what is right with messages that no one can criticize. Then, if anybody wants to stop you, other people will shame them because they will have nothing bad that they can justly say about any of us. |
Those who oppose him will be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about him.
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| Slaves, to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be pleasing, not to argue, | As for those believers who are slaves, teach them that they should always submit to their masters. Tell them to live in a way that pleases their masters in every way, and to not argue with them. |
They are to obey their masters, be pleasing, and should not argue.
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| not to steal, but to demonstrate all good faith, so that in every way they may show the beauty of the teaching that {is} about God our Savior. | They must not steal even little things from their masters; instead, they should be faithful to them, and they should do everything in a way that leads people to admire all that we teach about God, who saves us. |
It will bring credit to the teaching about God our Savior.
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| For the grace of God has appeared, salvific for all men, | The believers should behave in these good ways because God is offering to save everyone as a gift that no one deserves. |
The grace of God can save everyone.
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| training us, so that, rejecting godlessness and worldly passions, we might live in a sensible and righteous and godly way in the present age, | By means of this free gift, God trains us to stop doing what is wrong and what people of the world want to do. He teaches us to be sensible, to do what is right, and to obey him while we live during this present time. |
The grace of God trains us to reject godlessness and worldly passions.
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| while we look forward to receiving the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. | At the same time, God teaches us to wait for what he will certainly do in the future, which is something that will make us very happy: That is, Jesus the Messiah, our Savior and powerful God, will return to us in a glorious way. |
Believers look forward to receiving the blessed hope: the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
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| He gave himself for us in order to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a chosen people, zealous for good works. | He gave himself {to die} in our place so that we can be free to live in the way that God wants us to live, and to remove our sin from us so that we can be a special {group of} people who belong only to him, and who eagerly desire to do what is good. |
He gave himself in order to redeem us from lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are zealous to do good works.
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| Speak of these things, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. | {Titus,} speak about these things. Urge {the believers to live as I have described} and correct {them when they do what is wrong,} using your right to command {them if necessary}. Make sure that everyone pays attention to what you say. |
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| Remind them to submit to rulers {and} authorities, to obey {them}, to be ready for every good work, | Titus, continue to tell our people again that they should obey the people who rule over them. They need to be ready to be helpful whenever they are able. |
The believer should submit to them and obey them, and be ready for every good work.
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| to revile no one, to be uncontentious, gentle, showing all humility toward all men. | They should not say disrespectful things about anyone. They should be peaceful. They should treat everyone gently and as more important than themselves. |
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| For once we also were foolish {and} disobedient. We were led astray, enslaved by various passions and pleasures. We lived in evil and envy, detestable, hating one another. | We need to remember that there was a time when we ourselves were foolish and unwilling to obey God. We strongly desired to do things that made us feel good, and so we did those things. But then we discovered that we were unable to stop doing those things. We were constantly envying each other and doing other evil things. We caused people to hate us and we hated each other. |
Their various passions and pleasures lead them astray and enslave them.
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| But when the kindness and the love for mankind of God our Savior appeared, | But then when God showed us that he was acting generously to save us because he loves us, |
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| {it was} not by works of righteousness that we did but by his mercy that he saved us through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, | he saved us by removing our sin from us as though he had washed it away. As he did this, the Holy Spirit made us new and enabled us to start living in a new way for God. He did not save us because we do good things, but he saved us because he is merciful. |
He saved us through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
We are saved only because of God’s mercy.
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| whom he richly poured on us through our Savior Jesus Christ, | God generously gave us his Holy Spirit when Jesus the Messiah saved us. |
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| so that having been justified by the grace of that one, we might become heirs according to certain hope of eternal life. | When Jesus freely gave himself for us, God declared that everything was made right between him and us. Because Jesus did that, God gave us the Holy Spirit so that we can share in everything that the Lord Jesus has to give us, especially everlasting life with him. |
God makes us become his heirs.
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| This message {is} trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that the ones having believed God may be careful to engage themselves in good works. These things are good and useful for men. | This is a statement that everyone can trust. I want you to continually emphasize these things so that those who have believed God may constantly devote themselves to doing those things that are good and that help others. These things are excellent and beneficial for everyone. |
Believers should be careful to do the good works.
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| But avoid foolish debates and genealogies and strife and conflict about the law because they are unprofitable and worthless. | But many people will want to debate with you about senseless things, such as about lists of Jewish ancestors. They will want to dispute with you about {religious} law and argue with you about many things. Do not engage with them in any of that. Those kinds of things are useless and they do not help you in any way. |
Believers should avoid foolish debates, genealogies, strife, and conflict about religious law.
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| Reject a divisive person after one or two warnings, | If someone insists on engaging in these divisive activities after you have warned him one or two times to stop doing it, then have nothing more to do with him, |
We should reject a divisive person.
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| knowing that such a one has turned from the right way and is sinning, being self-condemned. | because you know that someone like that has rejected the truth; he is sinning and condemns himself. |
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| When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, hurry to come to me at Nicopolis, because I have decided to spend the winter there. | I plan to send Artemas or Tychicus to you. After one of them arrives, come quickly to me at the town of Nicopolis, because I have decided to stay there for the winter. |
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| Diligently send on their way Zenas the lawyer and Apollos so that they lack nothing. | Do everything you can to equip Zenas the law expert and Apollos for their journey, making sure that they have everything that they need. |
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| And also, our own must learn to engage themselves in good works toward essential needs, in order not to be unfruitful. | In the same way, make sure that our people learn to occupy themselves with doing good things for people who need help. By doing this, they will be living in a useful way for God. |
Believers must learn to engage themselves in doing good works that provide for essential needs.
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| All those with me greet you. Greet the ones loving us in faith. Grace {be} with all of you. | Titus, all those who are with me greet you! Please greet for us everyone there who loves us as fellow believers. May God continue to be kind to all of you. |