Those who are bound to slavery must treat their masters as entitled to all respect; otherwise God’s name and our doctrine will be ill spoken of.

And those whose masters belong to the faith must not think the less of them, for being their brethren; they should render all the better service, when those who benefit by their good will are believers, worthy of their love. Teach them, and encourage them, so to act.

Is there some rival teacher, who refuses assent to the sound principles which are the principles of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the doctrine which accords with holiness?

Then it is because he is puffed up with vanity; knowledge he has none, but an itch for speculation and controversy. What comes of it? Only jealousy, quarrelling, recriminations and base suspicions,

all such encounters as must arise between men with corrupted minds who have lost track of the truth. Religion, they think, will provide them with a living.

And indeed, religion is ample provision for life, though no more than a bare sufficiency goes with it.✻

Empty-handed we came into the world, and empty-handed, beyond question, we must leave it;

why then, if we have food and clothing to last us out, let us be content with that.

Those who would be rich fall into temptation, the devil’s trap for them; all those useless and dangerous appetites which sink men into ruin here and perdition hereafter.

The love of money is a root from which every kind of evil springs, and there are those who have wandered away from the faith by making it their ambition, involving themselves in a world of sorrows.✻

It is for thee, servant of God, to shun all this; to aim at right living, holiness, and faith, and love, and endurance, and kind forbearance.

Fight the good fight of faith, lay thy grasp on eternal life, that life thou wert called to, when thou didst assert the great claim before so many witnesses.

I adjure thee before the God who gives life to all things, before Christ Jesus who bore witness to that great claim when he stood before Pontius Pilate,

to fulfil thy charge without stain of reproach until the day when our Lord Jesus Christ appears.

God will reveal him in due time, the blessed God who alone enjoys dominion; he is King of kings, and Lord of lords;

to him alone immortality belongs, his dwelling is in unapproachable light; no human eye has seen or can ever see him; to him be glory and everlasting empire, Amen.

Warn those who are rich in this present world not to think highly of themselves, not to repose their hopes in the riches that may fail us, but in the living God, who bestows on us so richly all that we enjoy.

Let them do good, enrich their lives with charitable deeds, always ready to give, and to share the common burden,

laying down a sure foundation for themselves in time to come, so as to have life which is true life within their grasp.

It is for thee, Timothy, to keep safe what has been entrusted to thee, avoiding these new, intruding forms of speech, this quibbling knowledge that is knowledge only in name;✻

there are those who profess them, and in professing them have shot wide of the mark which faith sets us. Grace be with thee, Amen.