Instruction about behavior toward others
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📚✭Do not rebuke an older man, but plead with him as if he was your father, and treat the younger men as brothers, 2 📚the older women as mothers, and the younger as sisters, with complete purity. 3 📚✭Honour widows who are widows indeed.
Instruction about widows
4 📚✭But if any widow has children or nephews, let them first learn to practice piety✭ at home, and to repay✭ their parents, for that is good and acceptable before God. 5 📚✭Now she who is a widow indeed, and alone, trusts in God, and continues in requests and prayers night and day. 6 📚But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives✭. 7 📚And command these things, so that they may be blameless. 8 📚But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his own household, he has denied the faith✭, and is worse than an unbeliever.
9 📚Do not let a widow less than sixty years old be taken into the number✭. She must have been the wife of one man, 10 📚and be well spoken of in the matter of good works, if she has raised children, if she has shown hospitality✭, if she has washed the saints’ feet✭, if she has helped those in trouble, if she has carefully sought to do every sort of good work.
11 📚✭But refuse the younger widows, for when they are overcome with desires against Christ, they will want to marry, 12 📚being condemned, because they disregard their first assurance. 13 📚✭And besides they learn to be idle, going about from house to house, and not only idle, but also gossips and busybodies, speaking things which they should not. 14 📚✭So I want the younger women to marry, bear children, manage the house, and give no occasion to the enemy✭ to speak reproachfully. 15 📚✭For some have already turned aside after Satan✭.
16 📚✭If any man or woman who believes has widows, let them assist them, and do not let the church be burdened, so it can assist those who are truly widows.
Instruction about the treatment of elders
17 📚Let the elders who manage the church well be counted worthy of double honour✭, especially those who labour in the word and teaching. 18 📚For the Scripture says, You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain. And, The labourer is worthy of his wages.
19 📚✭Do not receive an accusation against an elder, except in the presence of two or three✭ witnesses. 20 📚✭Those who sin rebuke in the presence of everyone, so that others also may be afraid.
Instruction to Timothy
21 📚✭I charge you in the presence of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that you observe these things without showing favoritism, doing nothing from partiality.
22 📚Lay hands✭ suddenly on no man, and do not share in other men’s sins. Keep yourself pure.
23 📚No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent infirmities✭.