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.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.) 1996.
