The Superior Way of Love
13 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels
but have not love,
I have become a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy
and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains
but have not love,
I am nothing.
3 If I give away all that I own
and if I hand over my body so I might boast[a]
but have not love,
I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient,
love is kind,
it does not envy,
it does not brag,
it is not puffed up,
5 it does not behave inappropriately,
it does not seek its own way,
it is not provoked,
it keeps no account of wrong,
6 it does not rejoice over injustice
but rejoices in the truth;
7 it bears all things,
it believes all things,
it hopes all things,
it endures all things.
8 Love never fails—
but where there are prophecies,
they will pass away;
where there are tongues,
they will cease;
where there is knowledge,
it will pass away.
9 For we know in part
and we prophesy in part;
10 but when that which is perfect has come,
then that which is partial will pass away.
11 When I was a child,
I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man,
I put away childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly,
but then face to face.
Now I know in part,
but then I will know fully,
even as I have been fully known.
13 But now these three remain—
faith, hope, and love.
And the greatest of these is love.
Footnotes
- 1 Corinthians 13:3 Other mss. say be burned.