2 Timothy 3

Difficult Times Ahead

¹But know this: Hard times will come in the last days.²³For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,⁴⁵unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good,⁶⁷traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,⁸⁹holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.¹⁰

¹¹For among them are those who worm their way into households and deceive gullible women overwhelmed by sins and led astray by a variety of passions,¹²¹³always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.¹⁴¹⁵Just as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth. They are men who are corrupt in mind and worthless in regard to the faith.¹⁶¹⁷But they will not make further progress, for their foolishness will be clear to all, as was the foolishness of Jannes and Jambres.¹⁸

Struggles in the Christian Life

¹⁹But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance,²⁰²¹along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured — and yet the Lord rescued me from them all.²²²³In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.²⁴²⁵Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.²⁶²⁷But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you,²⁸²⁹and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.³⁰³¹All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,³²³³so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.³⁴