Father,
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have
not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And
if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If
I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned,
but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love
is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
It
is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own
way; it is not irritable or resentful;
It
does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love
never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for
tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass
away.
For
our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
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 gave up
childish ways.
For
now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now
I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I
have been fully understood.
So
faith, hope, love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
