Titus 3:3

For we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

Just as seven Christian virtues are given in Titus 3:1,2, there are seven negative qualities listed here, being in the principal part, merely the negative of the aforementioned virtues. Paul's reason for bringing in this description of unregenerated men is apparent in the first three words, "for we also."

This is an accurate picture of themselves before they became Christians. As White said:

The connection is: you need not suppose that it is hopeless to imagine that these wild Cretan folk can be reclaimed. We ourselves are a living proof of God's grace. Ephesians 2:3ff is an exact parallel. See also 1 Corinthians 6:11; Ephesians 5:8; Col. 3:7,1 Peter 4:3.[6]

Foolish... All sin against God is foolish. The unprepared virgins, the rich man who planned to build bigger barns, the man who built upon the sand, and the disciples who did not "believe all" that the prophets had spoken were all given a single designation by the Son of God, "foolish, fool, foolish... fools!"

Disobedient... This means disobedient to divine law, the commandments of God, as in Luke 1:17; Titus 1:16, etc.

Deceived... That is, deceived, either by false systems of religion, our own lusts and appetites, or by the foolish arrogance of our own conceit.

Serving divers lusts and pleasures... Although they had become "slaves of God," Paul reminded them that once they were "slaves" to all kinds of lusts and pleasures. "Pleasures," as generally used in the New Testament, is in the sense of evil pleasures (Luke 8:14; 1 Timothy 5:6).

Living in malice and envy... Malice is a general term for wickedness, but "here it has the special connotation of and malignity."[7] Such malice is desire to do harm to others as in Ephesians 4:31.

Hateful, and hating one another... What a sad picture of the sinful life is this. The sinner himself becomes hateful, despising himself, and even being hated by other sinners. As White put it:

This marks the stage of degradation before it becomes hopeless: when vice becomes odious to the vicious, and stands a self-confessed failure to produce happiness.[8]

[6] Newport J. D. White, Expositor's Greek New Testament, Vol. IV (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967), p. 197.

[7] Carl Spain, Commentary on 1,2Timothy and Titus (Austin, Texas: The R. B. Sweet Company, 1970), p. 186.

[8] Newport J. D. White, op. cit., p. 198.