³ For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.^(A) Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.^{(B) 4} They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.^(C)

¹⁰ and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing.^(A) They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.^{(B) 11} For this reason God sends them^(C) a powerful delusion^(D) so that they will believe the lie^{(E) 12} and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.^(F)

²¹ you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?^{(A) 22} You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?^{(B) 23} You who boast in the law,^(C) do you dishonor God by breaking the law?

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over^(A) to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.