^1. BUT 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, [1] haters of good,

^4. treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

^5. holding to a form of [2] godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.

^6. For among them are those who [4] enter into households and captivate [3] weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses,

^7. always learning and never able to come to the [5] 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 [6] Jannes' and Jambres' folly was also.

^10. Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, [7] 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 [9] inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for [8] training in righteousness;

^17. so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.