“Difficult Times Will Come”

¹But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. ² For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, ^[a]haters of good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ holding to a form of ^[b]godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. ⁶ For among them are those who ^[c]enter into households and captivate ^[d]weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, ⁷ always learning and never able to come to the ^[e]knowledge of the truth. ⁸ Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. ⁹ But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as ^[f]Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.

¹⁰ Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, ^[g]perseverance, ¹¹ persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! ¹² Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³ But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴ You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is ^[h]inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for ^[i]training in righteousness; ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.