13I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. ²^*I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains—but if I have no love, I am nothing. ³I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burnt—^o but if I have no love, this does me no good.

⁴Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; ⁵love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; ⁶love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. ⁷Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail.

⁸Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. ⁹For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; ¹⁰but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear.

¹¹When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child; now that I have grown up, I have no more use for childish ways. ¹²What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete—as complete as God’s knowledge of me.

¹³Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.

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Footnotes

oto be burnt; some manuscripts have in order to boast.

Cross references

*13.2: Mt 17:20; 21:21; Mk 11:23