Older and younger people in the congregation
1When an older man has done something wrong, you must not speak harshly when you talk to him. Tell him how he must live, and talk to him like you talk to your father. And you must talk to the younger men like you talk to your brothers. 2Talk to older women like you talk to your mother and when you talk to younger women, talk to them like you talk to your sisters and respect them.
Helping widows
3There are widows who do not have family who can care for them. You must respect them and care for them. 4But if a widow has children or grandchildren who can care for her, then they must remember that she is their own family and that they must care for her. That is how they must serve God. They must care for their parents and grandparents like their parents cared for them when they were small. This is what God wants them to do. 5A widow who is alone, and has no family who can care for her, knows that only God can help her. She must pray every day and night to God and tell Him what she needs. 6But a widow who always thinks about how she can enjoy life is spiritually_dead while she lives.
7You must keep on telling these things to the believers so that other people can not accuse them of doing wrong. 8But if anyone does not care for his own family or the people in his house, then he has stopped living like a believer. That person is worse than someone who does not believe in Christ.
9When a widow is 60 years old, you can put her name on the list of widows of the congregation. But she must have been the wife of only one husband. 10And other people must know that she has done good things, that she was a good mother, that she was good to strangers, that she washed the feet of believers, that she has helped people who were in trouble, and that she did a lot of good things.
11But you must not put the names of younger widows on the list of widows because they may start to think about men and want to marry again and then they will forget their work for Christ. 12Then they will be guilty because they don't do what they have promised Christ. 13They do not want to work, the whole day long they visit other women in their houses, doing nothing, and they say bad things about other people. They want to know things about other people that are not good for them, and they say things that believers should not say.
14I want the younger women to marry and have children and to care for their families. Then the enemies of the church will have nothing bad that they can say. 15Some widows have already started to do what Satan wants. 16If a woman believes in Christ and she has widows in her family, then she must care for them. Then the congregation will not have to do that work and then the congregation can help those widows who are really alone.
The elders
17There are elders who are good leaders. The believers must respect them and reward them. They must do this even more to the elders whose work it is to preach and teach the people. 18In the Old_Testament it is written:
‘You may not muzzle the mouth of a cow
when that cow is walking on wheat to thresh it.’
And it is also written:
‘When someone works, then you must reward him.’
19Do not listen to one person who says that an elder has done bad things. Listen only when there are 2 or 3 witnesses. 20When an elder continues to sin, then you must tell all the believers in the congregation what he has done wrong. You must do this so that the other elders will be afraid to do something bad like that.
21I am warning you now, and God and Jesus Christ and God's angels that He chose to serve Him can all hear and see what I say. When you talk to the believers in the congregation about these things, you may not decide who is right and who is wrong until you have listened to each one. You may not decide to help one person because you know him better than the other person. 22Wait before you choose someone to be an elder and put your hands on him, because if he has sinned, then you will be guilty with him. Always do what is right and good.
23Timothy, do not keep on drinking only water. You must also drink a little wine to help your stomach and to help with the other things that so often make you sick. 24Some people do wrong things that everyone can see clearly. We know that God will judge them. Other people sin but we can not see it now. We will see it only later. 25It is the same with the good things that people do. We can see some of the good things now, but some of them we will see only later.
