Study Desk

But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days.^(a)

For people will be lovers of self,^(b) lovers of money,^(c) boastful, proud,^(d) blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,^(e)

unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers,^(f) without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good,^(g)

traitors,^(h) reckless,⁽ⁱ⁾ conceited,^(j) lovers of pleasure^(k) rather than lovers of God,

holding to the form of godliness but denying its power.^(l) Avoid these people!^(m)

For among them are those who worm their way into households and capture idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions,⁽ⁿ⁾

always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.^(o)

Just as Jannes and Jambres^(p) resisted Moses,^(q) so these also resist the truth, men who are corrupt in mind,^(r) worthless^(s) in regard to the faith.

But they will not make further progress, for their lack of understanding will be clear to all, as theirs^[a] was also.

But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose,^(t) faith, patience, love,^(u) and endurance,

along with the persecutions and sufferings^(v) that came to me in Antioch,^(w) Iconium,^(x) and Lystra.^(y) What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from them all.

In fact, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.^(z)

Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving^(aa) and being deceived.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you,^(ab)

and you know that from childhood you have known the sacred Scriptures,^(ac) which are able to give you wisdom for salvation^(ad) through faith in Christ Jesus.

All Scripture is inspired by God^[b](ae) and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,

so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.^(af)