1. Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers,
2. older women as mothers, and with all propriety, the younger women as sisters.
3. Support widows who are genuinely widows.
4. But if any widow has children or grandchildren, they must learn to practice godliness toward their own family first and to repay their parents, for this pleases God.
5. The real widow, left all alone, has put her hope in God and continues night and day in her petitions and prayers;
6. however, she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.
7. Command this also, so they won’t be blamed.
8. But if anyone does not provide for his own, that is his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
9. No widow should be placed on the official support list unless she is at least 60 years old, has been the wife of one husband,
10. and is well known for good works — that is, if she has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to every good work.
11. But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when they are drawn away from Christ by desire, they want to marry