The Greatest of These
Every gift they are competing over — tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith that moves mountains, even giving everything away — counts for nothing without love. Love is patient, keeps no record of wrongs, and outlasts the gifts, which end when we see face to face.
13 1If I speak in the tongues of people and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal. 2If I can prophesy, understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, enough to move mountains, but lack love, I am nothing. 3If I give away everything I own, and if I hand over my body that I may boast, but have no love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It isn't rude, doesn't seek its own, isn't provoked, keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But prophecies will end, tongues will stop, and knowledge will end. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, thought as a child, reasoned as a child. When I became a man, I left childish things behind. 12For now we see a blurred image in a mirror; then, face to face. Now I know partly; then I will know fully, as I am fully known. 13And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
