Difficult Times Ahead

3 But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days.^{(A) 2} For people will be lovers of self,^(B) lovers of money,^(C) boastful, proud,^(D) blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,^{(E) 3} unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers,^(F) without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good,^{(G) 4} traitors,^(H) reckless,^(I) conceited,^(J) lovers of pleasure^(K) rather than lovers of God, ⁵ holding to the form of godliness but denying its power.^(L) Avoid these people!^(M)

⁶ For among them are those who worm their way into households and capture idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions,^{(N) 7} always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.^{(O) 8} Just as Jannes and Jambres^(P) resisted Moses,^(Q) so these also resist the truth, men who are corrupt in mind,^(R) worthless^(S) in regard to the faith. ⁹ But they will not make further progress, for their lack of understanding will be clear to all, as theirs^[a] was also.

Struggles in the Christian Life

¹⁰ But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose,^(T) faith, patience, love,^(U) and endurance, ¹¹ along with the persecutions and sufferings^(V) that came to me in Antioch,^(W) Iconium,^(X) and Lystra.^(Y) What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from them all. ¹² In fact, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.^{(Z) 13} Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving^(AA) and being deceived. ¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you,^{(AB) 15} and you know that from childhood you have known the sacred Scriptures,^(AC) which are able to give you wisdom for salvation^(AD) through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is inspired by God^[b](AE) and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.^(AF)