3
Bad people in the last days
1 You have to understand this. In the last days of this world, things will be tough for people. 2 Most people will only love themselves, and they will love money. They will think that they are smart, and they will tell everyone they are smart. They will say bad things about other people. They will never do what their parents tell them to do. They will never thank anyone for anything. They will not respect things that belong to God. 3 They will be hard and cruel. They will remember the wrong things that other people do, and they will do payback to them. They will get wild easily, and they will never control themselves. They will always hate everything that is good. 4 They will turn against their friends. They will do stupid things that will make problems for other people, but they will not care. They will think they are really good, but they are not. They will not love God, but instead they will only love to have fun. 5 They will reckon they respect God, but they will reckon that he hasn’t got any power. So I’m telling you, keep right away from those people.
6-7 They are the sort of people that trick some women that are stupid. They find women that always do anything they feel like doing, women that really went wrong, women that know that they did lots of bad things. That sort of woman is always ready to listen to a teacher that has a new idea, but they can never understand the true message. Those bad men get those women to let them into their homes, then they trick them with their talk, until the women really believe them. 8-9 Those men have sick and dirty minds, and they don’t really believe in God. Think about the story from a long time ago, that story about Jannes and Jambres. They stood up against Moses and argued with him. In the end God killed those 2 men, and everyone saw that they were fools, and that they were wrong. Well, those tricky men are just like those 2 men that lived a long time ago. Those tricky men stand up and argue against anyone that tells the true message, but in the end everyone will know that they are fools, and that they are wrong.*
10 But Timothy, you are very different from them. You believe the message I always teach, and you know the good way I always live. You know that I don’t get angry when I get trouble, and I keep on loving people. You know that I believe really strongly in Jesus, and you agree with me about the things I live for. 11 You know that bad people in some towns gave me a lot of trouble. They did that at Antioch, and at Iconium, and at Listra.
You know that they hurt me a lot at those places. But Jesus, our leader, saved me from them, and they didn’t kill me.*
People that make trouble
12 And it is always like that. If you belong to Jesus Christ and want to live God’s way, bad people will always make trouble for you. 13 And those bad liars will get worse and worse. They will go on tricking people, and just like that, other people will trick them too.
14 But as for you, we taught you lots of things about God, and now you really believe those things. And you know us. We only teach the true message, so you know that those things we taught you are true. So keep on believing and following our message. 15 And remember that a long time ago you were a kid, and your mother taught you things from God’s book, and that gave you enough sense to believe in Jesus Christ. Now you believe in him, and he saves you. 16 Everything in God’s book comes from God himself. It was God that sent the message to people to write down, and God uses it now to teach us his true word, and he uses it to get us to understand the things that are wrong with our lives, and he uses it to fix us up, and he uses it to teach us to do the things that are right.* 17 That’s how God properly trains his workers. He uses the words in his book to teach them, so they can do all those good things that he wants them to do.
* 3:8-9 Exodus 7:11 * 3:11 Acts 13:14—14:20 * 3:16 2 Peter 1:20-21