2 Timothy 3:1-11

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Godlessness in the Last Days

3 You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. ² For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,^{(A) 3} unfeeling, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good,^{(B) 4} treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,^{(C) 5} holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them! ⁶ For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate immature women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires,^{(D) 7} who are always studying yet never able to recognize truth. ⁸ As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these people, of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, also oppose the truth.^{(E) 9} But they will not make much progress because, as in the case of those two men,^[a] their folly will become plain to everyone.

Paul’s Charge to Timothy

¹⁰ Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,^{(F) 11} my persecutions, and my sufferings, the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.^(G)