Blessings for Obedience

1 “You shall not make ^sidols for yourselves or erect an ^timage or ^upillar, and you shall not set up a ^vfigured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. 2 ^wYou shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.

3 ^x“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then ^yI will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 ^zYour threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And ^ayou shall eat your bread to the full and ^bdwell in your land securely. 6 ^cI will give peace in the land, and ^dyou shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And ^eI will remove harmful beasts from the land, ^fand the sword shall not go through your land. 7 You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 ^gFive of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 ^hI will turn to you and ⁱmake you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. 10 You shall eat ^jold store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. 11 ^kI will make my dwelling¹ among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 ^lAnd I ^mwill walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13 ⁿI am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. ^oAnd I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

Punishment for Disobedience

14 ^p“But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, 15 if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but ^qbreak my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with ^rwasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And ^syou shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17 I will ^tset my face against you, and ^uyou shall be struck down before your enemies. ^vThose who hate you shall rule over you, and ^wyou shall flee when none pursues you. 18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again ^xsevenfold for your sins, 19 and I will break ^ythe pride of your power, and I ^zwill make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze. 20 And ^ayour strength shall be spent in vain, for ^byour land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

21 ^c“Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. 22 And ^dI will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that ^eyour roads shall be deserted.

23 “And ^fif by this discipline you are not turned to me ^cbut walk contrary to me, 24 ^gthen I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. 25 And ^hI will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, ⁱI will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 ^jWhen I break your supply² of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and ^kyou shall eat and not be satisfied.

27 “But ^lif in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28 then I will walk contrary to you ^min fury, and I myself will discipline you ^xsevenfold for your sins. 29 ⁿYou shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 And ^oI will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and ^pcast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. 31 And I will ^qlay your cities waste and will ^rmake your sanctuaries desolate, and ^sI will not smell your pleasing aromas. 32 And ^tI myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be ^uappalled at it. 33 And ^vI will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

34 ^w“Then the land shall enjoy³ its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. 36 And as for those of you who are left, ^xI will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The ^ysound of a ^zdriven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. 37 They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And ^ayou shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39 And those of you who are left shall ^brot away in your enemies’ lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

40 “But if ^cthey confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they ^dcommitted against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their ^euncircumcised heart is ^fhumbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42 then I will ^gremember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will ^hremember the land. 43 But ^wthe land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, ⁱI will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and ^jbreak my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, ^kwhom I brought out of the land of Egypt ^lin the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

46 ^mThese are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses ⁿon Mount Sinai.

The Steadfast Love of the Lord

Death Comes to All

1 But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, ^chow the righteous and the wise and their deeds are ^din the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. 2 ^eIt is the same for all, since ^fthe same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil,¹ to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who ^gswears is as he who shuns an oath. 3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that ^ethe same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and ^hmadness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 4 But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5 For the living know that they will die, but ⁱthe dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for ^jthe memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.

Enjoy Life with the One You Love

7 Go, ^keat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

8 ^lLet your garments be always white. Let not ^moil be lacking on your head.

9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your ⁿvain² life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your ^oportion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, ^pdo it with your might,^{3 q}for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Wisdom Better Than Folly

11 ^rAgain I saw that under the sun ^sthe race is not to the swift, nor ^tthe battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and ^uchance ^vhappen to them all. 12 For man ^wdoes not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and ^xlike birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are ^ysnared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.

13 I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. 14 There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. 15 But there was found in it ^za poor, wise man, and he by his ^awisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. 16 But I say that ^bwisdom is better than might, though ^cthe poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard.

17 The words of the wise heard in ^dquiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. 18 ^eWisdom is better than weapons of war, but ^fone sinner destroys much good.

Greeting

1 Paul, a servant¹ of God and ^aan apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and ^btheir knowledge of the truth, ^cwhich accords with godliness, 2 ^din hope of eternal life, which God, ^ewho never lies, ^fpromised ^gbefore the ages began² 3 and ^hat the proper time manifested in his word^{3 i}through the preaching ^jwith which I have been entrusted ^kby the command of God our Savior;

4 To Titus, ^lmy true child in ^ma common faith:

ⁿGrace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

Qualifications for Elders

5 ^oThis is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and ^pappoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 ^qif anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife,⁴ and his children are believers⁵ and not open to the charge of ^rdebauchery or insubordination. 7 For an overseer,^{6 s}as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not ^tbe arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent ^uor greedy for gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, ^vand disciplined. 9 He must ^whold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in ^xsound⁷ doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

10 For there are many who are insubordinate, ^yempty talkers and deceivers, especially those of ^zthe circumcision party.⁸ 11 They must be silenced, since ^athey are upsetting whole families by teaching ^bfor shameful gain what they ought not to teach. 12 ^cOne of the Cretans,⁹ a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”¹⁰ 13 This testimony is true. Therefore ^drebuke them ^esharply, that they ^fmay be sound in the faith, 14 ^gnot devoting themselves to Jewish myths and ^hthe commands of people ⁱwho turn away from the truth. 15 ^jTo the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and ^kunbelieving, nothing is pure; but both ^ltheir minds and their consciences are defiled. 16 ^mThey profess to know God, but they ⁿdeny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, ^ounfit for any good work.