1
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.
2
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3
If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body,(a) but have not love, I gain nothing.
4
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs.
6
Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth.
7
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed.
9
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10
but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.
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 set aside childish ways.
12
Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.
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