| If I speak
in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a
noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and
understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so
as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If
I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I
may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love
is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does
not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does
not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an
end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to
an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but
when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
When
I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned
like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.
Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been
fully known.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
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