1 Timothy, when any of you pray to God, I want you to thank him and ask him to give everyone what they need. 2 You should pray for kings and for all other leaders. You should pray for them so that they will look after us, and we can live peacefully in a quiet place and obey God and do what is right.

3 It is good when we pray to God. He will hear us and be pleased with us. He is the one who saves us, 4 and he wants to save everyone. He wants us to know the truth, 5 because he alone is the one God, and there are no others like him. And there is only one person who can take us to him so that we can be together, and that is the man, Jesus Christ. 6 Jesus didn't refuse to give himself but he died for us so that at that time he could set us all free. Because of that we know that God wants to save all of us. 7 And because of that God chose me to be an apostle and to tell people about Jesus Christ. That is true. I am not lying, I am speaking the truth. God sent me to the people who are not Jews to tell them the truth, so that they can hear and trust in Jesus Christ.

8 Listen! When people go to church, when they meet together, I want the men to pray to God. Those men who lift up their hands to pray must not argue angrily, but they must pray to God quietly because they are his people.

9 And I don't want the women to wear the wrong kind of clothes that will make us feel ashamed. They should wear the right kind of clothes. And they shouldn't make themselves beautiful with gold bangles and lovely necklaces and expensive clothes and doing different things to their hair. 10 But if they keep busy doing good for other people, that's what will make them beautiful. If they say to each other, “We are Christians and we worship God,” they should do good work. Then they will be beautiful.

11 When the men teach the women, the women should not be proud but they should listen to them quietly. 12 I do not want the women to teach the men or lead them. They must listen quietly to the men. 13 I am saying this to you because God made Adam first and then Eve. 14 The snake tricked Eve and not Adam. It was the woman who didn't obey God and listened to the snake. 15 If a woman doesn't shame other people but loves them and trusts God and has a clean mind, then God will save her when she has children.