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The Way of Love

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² 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 have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,^[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;^[b]6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes:

1. 1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast
2. 1 Corinthians 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing

Cross references:

1. 1 Corinthians 13:2 : [ch. 14:1, 39; Matt. 7:22]; See Acts 2:18
2. 1 Corinthians 13:2 : Matt. 17:20; Mark 11:23; [Luke 17:6]
3. 1 Corinthians 13:3 : [Matt. 6:2]
4. 1 Corinthians 13:3 : Dan. 3:28
5. 1 Corinthians 13:4 : [Prov. 10:12; 17:9; 1 Thess. 5:14; 2 Tim. 2:10; 1 Pet. 4:8]
6. 1 Corinthians 13:4 : [2 Cor. 6:6; Gal. 5:22; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:12]
7. 1 Corinthians 13:4 : Acts 7:9
8. 1 Corinthians 13:4 : See ch. 4:6
9. 1 Corinthians 13:5 : See ch. 10:24
10. 1 Corinthians 13:5 : [Rom. 4:6; 2 Cor. 5:19]
11. 1 Corinthians 13:6 : [Rom. 1:32; 2 Thess. 2:12]
12. 1 Corinthians 13:6 : [2 John 4; 3 John 3, 4]
13. 1 Corinthians 13:7 : ch. 9:12
14. 1 Corinthians 13:7 : [See ver. 4 above]; [Prov. 10:12; 17:9; 1 Thess. 5:14; 2 Tim. 2:10; 1 Pet. 4:8]
15. 1 Corinthians 13:9 : [ch. 8:2]
16. 1 Corinthians 13:10 : [John 15:15]
17. 1 Corinthians 13:12 : James 1:23; [Num. 12:8; Job 36:26; 2 Cor. 3:18; 5:7]
18. 1 Corinthians 13:12 : 1 John 3:2; See Matt. 5:8
19. 1 Corinthians 13:12 : See ch. 8:3