1 Corinthians 13

Love

¹ If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.

² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

³ If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body,¹ but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

⁵ It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs.

⁶ Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth.

⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed.

⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.

¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.

¹² Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.