If I could speak in any
language in heaven or on earth but didn’t love others, I would only be making
meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal. (2) If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I
knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but
didn’t love others, what good would I be?
And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and
make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody. (3) If I gave everything I have to the poor
and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it but if I didn’t love
others, I would be of no value whatsoever.
(4) Love is patient and
kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or
proud (5) or rude. Love does not demand
its own way. Love is not irritable, and
it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
(6) It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth
wins out. (7) Love never gives up, never
loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
(8) Love will last forever, but
prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all
disappear. (9) Now we know only a
little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! (10) But when the end comes, these special
gifts will all disappear.
(11) It’s like this: When I was a child, I
spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does.
But when I grew up, I put away childish things. (12) Now we see things imperfectly as in a
poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and
incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me
now.
(13) There are three things
that will endure—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
1
Corinthians: Chapter 13
The
New Living Translation
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