1: Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine.
2: Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance.
3: Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness.
4: By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children,
5: be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don't want anyone looking down on God's Message because of their behavior.
6: Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.
7: But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching,
8: your words solid and sane. Then anyone who is dead set against us, when he finds nothing weird or misguided, might eventually come around.
9: Guide slaves into being loyal workers, a bonus to their masters--no back talk,
10: no petty thievery. Then their good character will shine through their actions, adding luster to the teaching of our Savior God.
11: God's readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation's available for everyone!
12: We're being shown how to turn our backs on a godless, indulgent life, and how to take on a God-filled, God-honoring life. This new life is starting right now,
13: and is whetting our appetites for the glorious day when our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, appears.
14: He offered himself as a sacrifice to free us from a dark, rebellious life into this good, pure life, making us a people he can be proud of, energetic in goodness.
15: Tell them all this. Build up their courage, and discipline them if they get out of line. You're in charge. Don't let anyone put you down.