1-corinthians

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Love: The Superior Way

13 
If I speak human or angelic languages

but do not have love,

I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy

and understand all mysteries

and all knowledge,

and if I have all faith

so that I can move mountains

but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor,

and if I give my body in order to boast[a]

but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind.

Love does not envy,

is not boastful, is not conceited,

5 does not act improperly,

is not selfish, is not provoked,

and does not keep a record of wrongs.

6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness

but rejoices in the truth.

7 It bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends.

But as for prophecies,

they will come to an end;

as for languages, they will cease;

as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

9 For we know in part,

and we prophesy in part.

10 But when the perfect comes,

the partial will come to an end.

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 aside childish things.

12 For now we see indistinctly,[b] as in a mirror,[c]

but then face to face.

Now I know in part,

but then I will know fully,

as I am fully known.

13 Now these three remain:

faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes

  1. 1 Corinthians 13:3 Other mss read body to be burned
  2. 1 Corinthians 13:12 Or indirectly
  3. 1 Corinthians 13:12 Ancient mirrors were normally made out of polished metals and were not as clear as modern ones.