1 ³ When I was starting for Macedonia, I urged you to stay on at Ephesus. You were to command certain persons to give up teaching erroneous doctrines 1 ⁴ and studying those interminable myths and genealogies, which issue in mere speculation and cannot make known God's plan for us, which works through faith. Or: cannot promote the faithful discharge of God's stewardship.
1 ⁵ The aim and object of this command is the love which springs from a clean heart, from a good conscience, and from faith that is genuine. 1 ⁶ Through falling short of these, some people have gone astray into a wilderness of words. 1 ⁷ They set out to be teachers of the moral law, without understanding either the words they use or the subjects about which they are so dogmatic.

1 ⁸ We all know that the law is an excellent thing, provided we treat it as law, 1 ⁹ recognizing that it is not aimed at good citizens, but at the lawless and unruly, the impious and sinful, the irreligious and worldly; at parricides and matricides, murderers 1 ¹⁰ and fornicators, perverts, kidnappers, liars, perjurers—in fact all whose behaviour flouts the wholesome teaching 1 ¹¹ which conforms with the gospel entrusted to me, the gospel which tells of the glory of God in his eternal felicity.