3:1   You must realize, however, that in the last days difficult times will come.

3:2   People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

3:3   unfeeling, uncooperative, slanderous, degenerate, brutal, hateful of what is good,

3:4   traitors, reckless, conceited, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

3:5   They will hold to an outward form of godliness but deny its power. Stay away from such people.

3:6   For some of these men go into homes and deceive foolish women who are burdened with sins and swayed by all kinds of desires.

3:7   These women are always studying but are never able to arrive at a full knowledge of the truth.

3:8   Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men oppose the truth. They are depraved in mind and their faith is a counterfeit.

3:9   But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those two men, their stupidity will be plain to everyone.

3:10   But you have observed my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance,

3:11   and my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

3:12   Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in union with Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

3:13   But evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse as they deceive others and are themselves deceived.

3:14   But as for you, continue in what you have learned and found to be true, because you know from whom you learned it.

3:15   From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures that are able to give you the wisdom you need for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

3:16   All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

3:17   so that the man of God may be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work.