In Titus 1:12, Paul quotes a line from the
Cretan poet Epimenides. The NRSV rendering, "Cretans are always liars, vicious
brutes, lazy gluttons," is accurate enough, but it is definitely not poetry. The
translators of the ISV believe there is a real difference between prose and poetry, and
that, insofar as possible, poetry should be poetry:
Liars ever, men of Crete,
Savage brutes that live to eat.
