2 Ti-mô-thê 3

Terrible times in the last days

¹But understand this: in the last days there will be terrible times. ²People will love themselves and love money. They will be boastful, arrogant and abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful and unholy. ³They will be without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, hating what is good. ⁴They will be treacherous, reckless and conceited, loving pleasure rather than loving God. ⁵They will keep up an appearance of godliness, but deny its power. Have nothing to do with such people. ⁶Among them are those who worm their way into homes and gain control over vulnerable women who are weighed down with sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, ⁷always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. ⁸Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these people oppose the truth. Their minds are corrupt, and they have failed the test of faith. ⁹But they will not get very far, because, as with those two, their folly will be clear to everyone.

Continue in what you have learned

¹⁰But you know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance, ¹¹my persecutions and sufferings, the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, and the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. ¹²In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³But evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves. ¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and are sure of, since you know who taught you, ¹⁵and how from infancy you have known the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶All Scripture is breathed out by God and is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that the one who belongs to God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work.^a