3:1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. |
3:2 For men will love themselves, become lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, |
3:3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, |
3:4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, |
3:5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. |
3:6 For among them we count those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, |
3:7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. |
3:8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. |
3:9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will appear obvious to all, just as Jannes's and Jambres's folly became evident. |
3:10 Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, |
3:11 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! |
3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. |
3:13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and becoming deceived. |
3:14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, |
3:15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which have the capacity to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which dwells in Christ Jesus. |
3:16 All Scripture receives inspiration by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; |
3:17 so that the man of God may become adequate, equipped for every good work. |