What People will be Like in the Last Days

3 You must realize, however, that in the last days difficult times will come. ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ unfeeling, uncooperative, slanderous, degenerate, brutal, hateful of what is good, ⁴ traitors, reckless, conceited, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. ⁵ They will hold to an outward form of godliness but deny its power. Stay away from such people. ⁶ For some of these men go into homes and deceive foolish women who are burdened with sins and swayed by all kinds of desires. ⁷ These women are always studying but are never able to arrive at a full knowledge of the truth. ⁸ Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men oppose the truth. They are depraved in mind and their faith is a counterfeit. ⁹ But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those two men,^[a] their stupidity will be plain to everyone.

Continue to Teach the Truth

¹⁰ But you have observed my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance, ¹¹ and how I was persecuted and suffered in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. ¹² Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in union with the Messiah^[b] Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³ But evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse as they deceive others and are themselves deceived.

¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and found to be true, because you know from whom you learned it. ¹⁵ From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures that are able to give you the wisdom you need for salvation through faith in the Messiah^[c] Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed^[d] and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good action.