Understand is literally “know,” not in the sense of introducing new information, but of calling attention to something that is already known (so Good News Translation “Remember”). Other ways of expressing understand are “I want you to know that…,” “You should be aware of the fact that…,” or “You can be certain that….” This refers to what follows, namely, the conditions that exist in the end time. The term the last days may be taken in two ways: (1) It may refer to the time immediately before Christ’s second coming; interpreted this way, the last days refers to the period immediately preceding the “Day” that is referred to in 2 Tim 1.12, 18. (2) It may be a general reference to the Christian era. There is biblical evidence to show that the coming of Jesus Christ to earth and the establishment of the Christian church signal the beginning of the last days (see, for example, Acts 2.16-21 and Heb 1.2). Christians therefore are living in the last days. If this second option is followed, then the last days is better rendered as “these last days.”

Will come is in the future tense but clearly suggests that the events described are imminent and are about to happen. Stress pertains to something which causes hardships; times of stress are therefore times of danger, violence, trouble, and distress. It is a common theme in Jewish apocalyptic literature that the last days are characterized by such adversities.

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1995. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .