Perilous Times and Perilous Men

3 But know this, that ^(A)in the last days ^[a]perilous times will come: ² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, ^[b]unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ^4 (B)traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ^5 (C)having a form of godliness but ^(D)denying its power. And ^(E)from such people turn away! ⁶ For ^(F)of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, ⁷ always learning and never able ^(G)to come to the knowledge of the truth. ^8 (H)Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: ^(I)men of corrupt minds, ^(J)disapproved concerning the faith; ⁹ but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, ^(K)as theirs also was.

³ And ^(A)this is eternal life, that they may know You, ^(B)the only true God, and Jesus Christ ^(C)whom You have sent.

³⁶ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

Deceptions of False Teachers

¹⁸ For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who ^[a]have actually escaped from those who live in error. ¹⁹ While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of ^[b]corruption; ^(A)for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into ^[c]bondage. ²⁰ For if, after they ^(B)have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are ^(C)again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. ²¹ For ^(D)it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. ²² But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: ^(E)“A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”