1But know this: that in the last days difficult times will come.
2For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3without natural affection, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for good,
4traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5holding to a form of godliness but having denied its power. Turn away from such people.
6For from among these are those who worm their way into households and captivate weak-willed women burdened with sins, led astray by various desires,
7always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
8And just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these oppose the truth—people corrupted in mind, unqualified regarding the faith.
9But they will not advance much further, for their folly will be plainly evident to all, just as also that of those men became.
10But you have closely followed my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance,
11my persecutions, my sufferings—such things as happened to me in Antioch, in Iconium, in Lystra; such persecutions as I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me.
12Indeed, all who want to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
13But evil people and impostors will advance to the worse, deceiving and being deceived.
14But you, remain in the things you learned and were convinced of, knowing from whom you learned them,
15and that from infancy you have known the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
16All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness,
17so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Open in the interactive reader →