The conjunction but accents and signals the contrast between the state of people before and after they have received God’s mercy and experienced God’s salvation. When translating this passage as prose, it will be necessary to retain this signal. However, when translating it as poetry, it is permissible to eliminate this signal, since it will not be natural in poetry to begin with a conjunction. It is possible, however, to retain but as an introduction to the intended poetic section.

Goodness is a quality that expresses itself in action, hence “kindness.” Loving kindness has a similar meaning in that it does not only refer to feeling or emotion but to positive acts of kindness toward others. The fact that these two are synonyms is clear from the various translation models, as for example goodness and loving kindness, “kindness and love” (Good News Translation), “how good and kind” (Contemporary English Version).

For God our Savior see 1 Tim 1.1.

For appeared see 2.11 and the related word in 2.13.

It may not be possible in some languages to talk about kindness or love appearing, in which case some restructuring will be necessary; for example, Good News Translation “was revealed.” It will also be possible to say “when God our Savior showed his love and kindness to us,” or even “when God our salvation giver became kind to us.”

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to Titus. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1995. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .