Love

1If I speak in the tongues (languages) of men and of angels (messengers), but have not love {agapēn}, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love {agapēn}, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body [surrender my body to be burned],a but have not love {agapēn}, I gain nothing.

4Love {agapē} is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. 6Love takes no pleasure in evil (wickedness), but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love {agapē} never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues (languages), they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when the perfect (complete) comes, the partial passes away.

11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. 12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love {agapē}; but the greatest of these is love.