¹ If in speaking I use human tongues
and angelic as well,
but do not have love,^[a]
I am nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
² If I have the gift of prophecy
and the ability to understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and have all the faith necessary to move mountains,
but do not have love,
I am nothing.
³ If I give away everything to feed the poor
and hand over my body to be burned,
but do not have love,
I achieve nothing.
⁴ Love is patient;
love is charitable.
Love is not envious;
it does not have an inflated opinion of itself;
it is not filled with its own importance.
⁵ Love is never rude;
it does not seek its own advantage.
It is not prone to anger;
neither does it brood over setbacks.
⁶ Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices in the truth.
⁷ Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
⁸ Love never fails.
Prophecies will eventually cease,
tongues will become silent,
and knowledge will pass away,
⁹ for our knowledge is partial
and our prophesying is partial;
¹⁰ but when we encounter what is perfect,
that which is imperfect will pass away.
¹¹ When I was a child,
I used to talk like a child,
think like a child,
and reason like a child.
However, when I became a man,
I put all childish ways aside.
¹² At the present time we see indistinctly, as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face.
My knowledge is only partial now;
then I shall know fully,
even as I am fully known.
¹³ Thus there are three things that endure: faith, hope, and love,
and the greatest of these is love.^[b]