The Excellence of Love

1If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may [a]glory, but do not have love, it does me no good.

4Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7it [b]keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails; but if there are gifts of [c]prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9For we know in part and prophesy in part; 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. 11When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I [d]became a man, I did away with childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror [e]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. 13But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the [f]greatest of these is love.