7 always learning, and never to a knowledge of truth able to come,
Who have said to seers, `Ye do not see,' And to prophets, `Ye do not prophesy to us Straightforward things, Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits, Turn aside from the way, decline from the path, Cause to cease from before us the Holy One of Israel.'
in meekness instructing those opposing -- if perhaps God may give to them repentance to an acknowledging of the truth,
A scorner hath sought wisdom, and it is not, And knowledge to the intelligent `is' easy.
And he answering said to them that -- `To you it hath been given to know the secrets of the reign of the heavens, and to these it hath not been given,
And I, brethren, was not able to speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly -- as to babes in Christ; with milk I fed you, and not with meat, for ye were not yet able, but not even yet are ye now able, for yet ye are fleshly, for where `there is' among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not fleshly, and in the manner of men do walk? for when one may say, `I, indeed, am of Paul;' and another, `I -- of Apollos;' are ye not fleshly?
who doth will all men to be saved, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth;
for there shall be a season when the sound teaching they will not suffer, but according to their own desires to themselves they shall heap up teachers -- itching in the hearing, and indeed, from the truth the hearing they shall turn away, and to the fables they shall be turned aside.
concerning whom we have much discourse and of hard explanation to say, since ye have become dull of hearing,
`Therefore, speak with them, and thou hast said unto them: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Every one of the house of Israel who causeth his idols to go up unto his heart, and the stumbling-block of his iniquity setteth over-against his face, and hath gone in unto the prophet -- I Jehovah have given an answer to him for this, for the abundance of his idols, in order to catch the house of Israel by their heart, in that they have become estranged from off me by their idols -- all of them. `Therefore say unto the house of Israel: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Turn ye back, yea, turn ye back from your idols, and from all your abominations turn back your faces, for every one of the house of Israel, and of the sojourners who doth sojourn in Israel, who is separated from after Me, and doth cause his idols to go up unto his heart, and the stumbling-block of his iniquity setteth over-against his face, and hath come in unto the prophet to inquire of him concerning Me, I, Jehovah, have answered him for Myself; and I have set My face against that man, and made him for a sign, and for similes, and I have cut him off from the midst of My people, and ye have known that I `am' Jehovah. `And the prophet, when he is enticed, and hath spoken a word -- I, Jehovah, I have enticed that prophet, and have stretched out My hand against him, and have destroyed him from the midst of My people Israel. And they have borne their iniquity: as the iniquity of the inquirer, so is the iniquity of the prophet;
for every one who is doing wicked things hateth the light, and doth not come unto the light, that his works may not be detected; but he who is doing the truth doth come to the light, that his works may be manifested, that in God they are having been wrought.'
Still, however, also out of the rulers did many believe in him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing, that they might not be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Timothy 3
Commentary on 2 Timothy 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 3
In this chapter Paul tells Timothy how bad others would be, and therefore how good he should be; and this use we should make of the badness of others, thereby to engage us to hold our own integrity so much the firmer.
2Ti 3:1-9
Timothy must not think it strange if there were in the church bad men; for the net of the gospel was to enclose both good fish and bad, Mt. 13:47, 48. Jesus Christ had foretold (Mt. 24) that there would come seducers, and therefore we must not be offended at it, nor think the worse of religion or the church for it. Even in gold ore there will be dross, and a great deal of chaff among the wheat when it lies on the floor.
2Ti 3:10-17
Here the apostle, to confirm Timothy in that way wherein he walked,