How does Saint Paul describe the corruption of the last days and the role of Sacred Scripture in equipping the man of God in 2 Timothy 3?

Saint Paul warns Timothy that perilous and distressing times will emerge in the final days, marked by widespread moral collapse. People will become entirely self-absorbed, greedy for money, arrogant, haughty, blasphemous, disrespectful to parents, ungrateful, and unholy. Society will see callous indifference, irreconcilable enmity, slanderous speech, lack of self-control, cruelty, hostility toward good, treachery, stubbornness, and puffed-up vanity, loving bodily pleasure rather than God. While preserving an outward semblance and formal veneer of religion, these individuals completely repudiate its inner, transforming power. Paul commands Timothy to separate himself entirely from such hypocrites. Among them are predatory deceivers who slip into private households and manipulate women described as laden with sins and led away by diverse desires, who who are perpetually studying yet never able to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. Just as the Egyptian court magicians Jannes and Mambres opposed Moses, so these corrupt minds oppose genuine truth, depraved in understanding and counterfeit regarding the faith; however, they shall proceed no farther when their foolishness becomes obvious to all.

In sharp contrast to these deceivers, Timothy has intimately witnessed Paul's doctrine, conduct, life purpose, faith, forbearance, love, and patience, as well as the persecutions and afflictions endured in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, from all of which the Lord delivered him. The apostle establishes the universal rule that everyone who resolves to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, while wicked impostors plunge deeper into deception, misleading others while being deceived themselves. Timothy must remain steadfast in the truths he learned from dependable apostolic teachers, recalling that from earliest childhood he has known the sacred Scriptures, which can instruct him unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture, being divinely inspired, is supremely beneficial for teaching truth, refuting error, correcting faults, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be fully equipped and thoroughly proficient for every good work.

The edition’s separate note says every part of divine Scripture is profitable for these ends. For the whole rule of Christian faith and practice, it says neither the Old Testament Timothy knew from infancy alone nor the New Testament without apostolic traditions and the Church’s interpretation is sufficient; it says the apostles delivered both the book and its true meaning to the Church. This is the annotation’s explanation, distinguished from the verse itself.