Opponents of the truth

3 You need to know this: bad times are coming in the last days. ² People will be in love with themselves, you see, and with money too. They will be boastful, arrogant, abusive, haters of parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ unfeeling, implacable, accusing, dissolute, savage, haters of the good, ⁴ traitors, reckless, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ holding on to a pattern of godliness but denying its power. Avoid people like that! ⁶ This group, you see, includes those who worm their way into people’s houses and ensnare foolish women who are overwhelmed with their sins and are pulled and pushed by all kinds of desires, ⁷ always learning but never able to arrive at the truth. ⁸ Just as Jannes and Jambres stood up against Moses, so people like this oppose the truth. In their minds they are corrupt; in their faith they are of no account. ⁹ They won’t get very far, though, because their foolishness will become obvious to everyone, as it was with those two.

Continue in the scriptures!

¹⁰ So what about you? You have followed my teaching faithfully, and also my way of life, my aims and goals, my faith, longsuffering, love and patience, ¹¹ my persecutions, my sufferings, the things I went through in Antioch, in Iconium, in Lystra, the persecutions I endured—and the Lord rescued me from all of them. ¹² Yes, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Messiah Jesus will be persecuted, ¹³ while evil people and impostors will go on to even worse things, deceiving others and being themselves deceived. ¹⁴ But you, on the other hand, must stand firm in the things you learned and believed. You know who it was you received them from, ¹⁵ and how from childhood you have known the holy writings which have the power to make you wise for salvation through faith in Messiah Jesus. ¹⁶ All scripture, breathed as it is by God, is useful for teaching, for rebuke, for improvement, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that people who belong to God may be complete, fitted out and ready for every good work.