31 Now eagerly desirem the greater gifts.

Love Is Indispensable

And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

13 If I speak in the tonguesa n of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecyo and can fathom all mysteriesp and all knowledge,q and if I have a faithr that can move mountains,s but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poort and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,b u but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient,v love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.w 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,x it is not easily angered,y it keeps no record of wrongs.z 6 Love does not delight in evila but rejoices with the truth.b 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.c

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies,d they will cease; where there are tongues,e they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in partf and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes,g what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhoodh behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;i then we shall see face to face.j Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.k

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.l But the greatest of these is love.m