1 Difficult Times Ahead But know this: Hard times will come in the last days.2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good,4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.6 For among them are those who worm their way into households and deceive gullible women overwhelmed by sins and led astray by a variety of passions,7 always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.8 Just as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth. They are men who are corrupt in mind and worthless in regard to the faith.9 But they will not make further progress, for their foolishness will be clear to all, as was the foolishness of Jannes and Jambres.10 Struggles in the Christian Life But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance,11 along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured — and yet the Lord rescued me from them all.12 In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.13 Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you,15 and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.16 All Scripture is inspired by God Lit breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.