The Excellence of Love

1If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if 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 all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body [†]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up; 5it does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered; 6it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7[†]it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails, but if there are gifts of [†]prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when the [†]perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I [†]became a man, I did away with childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror [†]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 abide faith, hope, love—these three; but the [†]greatest of these is love.