Chapter 3

   But of this be assured: in the last days grievous times will set in.  

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   For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, profane. They will be disobedient to parents, thankless, irreligious,  

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   destitute of natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers. They will have no self-control, but will be brutal, opposed to goodness,  

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   treacherous, headstrong, self-important. They will love pleasure instead of loving God,  

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   and will keep up a make-believe of piety and yet live in defiance of its power. Turn away from people of this sort.  

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   Among them are included the men who make their way into private houses and carry off weak women as their prisoners--women who, weighed down by the burden of their sins, are led by ever-changing caprice,  

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   and are always learning something new, and yet are never able to arrive at real knowledge of the truth.  

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   And just as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so also these false teachers withstand the truth--being, as they are, men of debased intellects, and of no real worth so far as faith is concerned.  

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   But they will have no further success; for their folly will be as clearly manifest to all men, as that of the opponents of Moses came to be.  

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   But you have intimately known my teaching, life, aims, faith, patience, love, resignation,  

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   and the persecutions and sufferings which I have endured; the things which happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra. You know the persecutions I endured, and how the Lord delivered me out of them all.  

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   And indeed every one who is determined to live a godly life as a follower of Christ Jesus will be persecuted.  

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   But bad men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, misleading and being misled.  

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   But you must cling to the things which you have learnt and have been taught to believe, knowing who your teachers were,  

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   and that from infancy you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise to obtain salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  

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   Every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for convincing, for correction of error, and for instruction in right doing;  

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   so that the man of God may himself be complete and may be perfectly equipped for every good work.  

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