to aspire to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you.

For we hear that some among you are living an undisciplined life, ¹  not doing their own work but meddling in the work of others. ² 

Now such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and so provide their own food to eat. ¹ 

But if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for the church of God?

But now in his own time ¹  he has made his message evident through the preaching I was entrusted with according to the command of God our Savior.

A certain one of them, in fact, one of their own prophets, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” ¹ 

to be self-controlled, ¹  pure, fulfilling their duties at home, ²  kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the message ³  of God may not be discredited. ⁴ 

However, ¹  without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your good deed would not be out of compulsion, but from your own willingness.

I, Paul, have written ¹  this letter ²  with my own hand: ³  I will repay it. I could also mention that you owe ⁴  me your very self.

For the one who enters God’s ¹  rest has also rested from his works, just as God did from his own works.

And no one assumes this honor ¹  on his own initiative, ²  but only when called to it by God, ³  as in fact Aaron was.

not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and even more so because you see the day ¹  drawing near. ² 

And see to it that no one becomes ¹  an immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. ² 

For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone ¹  who gazes at his own face ²  in a mirror.

Above all, you do well if you recognize ¹  this: ²  No prophecy of scripture ever comes about by the prophet’s own imagination, ³ 

yet was rebuked ¹  for his own transgression (a dumb donkey, ²  speaking with a human voice, ³  restrained the prophet’s madness). ⁴ 

They are illustrations of this true proverb: ¹  “A dog returns to its own vomit,” ²  and “A sow, after washing herself, ³  wallows in the mire.” ⁴ 

These people are grumblers and ¹  fault-finders who go ²  wherever their desires lead them, ³  and they give bombastic speeches, ⁴  enchanting folks ⁵  for their own gain. ⁶ 

“If a man grazes ¹  his livestock ²  in a field or a vineyard, and he lets the livestock loose and they graze in the field of another man, he must make restitution from the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard.

You must have this tassel so that you may look at it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and obey them and so that you do not follow ¹  after your own heart and your own eyes that lead you to unfaithfulness. ²