Love: The Superior Way
13 If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love,(A) I am a noisy gong(B) or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy(C) and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains(D) but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient,(E) love is kind. Love does not envy,(F) is not boastful, is not arrogant,(G) 5 is not rude, is not self-seeking,(H) is not irritable,(I) and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.(J) 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures(K) all things.
8 Love never ends.(L) But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, 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 only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face.(M) Now I know in part, but then I will know fully,(N) as I am fully known.(O) 13 Now these three remain: faith, hope,(P) and love—but the greatest of these is love.
Footnotes
- 13:1
- 13:3
- 13:12
Cross references
- 13:1 : Jn 13:35; 1Jn 4:7–12
- 13:1 : Mt 10:9
- 13:2 : 1Co 14:1,3–6,22–39; Eph 4:11; 1Th 5:20
- 13:2 : Mt 17:20
- 13:4 : 1Th 5:14
- 13:4 : Nm 25:13; Gl 4:17
- 13:4 : 1Co 4:6
- 13:5 : Mk 10:45; Php 2:4
- 13:5 : Ac 17:16
- 13:6 : Ps 119:142; Jn 8:14; 14:6
- 13:7 : Jms 1:12
- 13:8 : Mt 7:25,27; Lk 6:49; 11:17; 13:4; 16:17; Ac 15:16; Heb 11:30; Rv 11:13; 16:19
- 13:12 : 1Jn 3:2
- 13:12 : Pr 2:6; Jn 17:3; 1Jn 4:8
- 13:12 : 1Co 8:3; Gl 4:9
- 13:13 : 1Th 1:3
