Love: The Superior Way

¹If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.[#13:1 languages, also in v. 8; #13:1 Jn 13:35; 1Jn 4:7–12; #13:1 Mt 10:9]

²If 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.[#13:2 1Co 14:1,3–6,22–39; Eph 4:11; 1Th 5:20; #13:2 Mt 17:20]

³And 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.[#13:3 Other mss read body to be burned]

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant,[#13:4 1Th 5:14; #13:4 Nm 25:13; Gl 4:17; #13:4 1Co 4:6]

⁵is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.[#13:5 Mk 10:45; Php 2:4; #13:5 Ac 17:16]

⁶Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.[#13:6 Ps 119:142; Jn 8:14; 14:6]

⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.[#13:7 Jms 1:12]

⁸Love never ends. 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.[#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]

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

¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.

¹¹When 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.

¹²For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.[#13:12 Lit we see indirectly; #13:12 1Jn 3:2; #13:12 Pr 2:6; Jn 17:3; 1Jn 4:8; #13:12 1Co 8:3; Gl 4:9]

¹³Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love #– #but the greatest of these is love.[#13:13 1Th 1:3]