What Love Is
1 If I speak in the languages of men and angels, but do not have love, I am but a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, and if I have faith so great as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give all of my possessions away to feed the poor, and if I martyr myself in glory, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love suffers patiently.
Love is kind.
Love does not envy.
It does not brag.
It is not proud.
5 It is not rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not easily provoked.
Of wrongs, it keeps no records.
6 Love finds no joy in injustice: it rejoices in truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. Prophecies will pass. Tongues will cease. Knowledge will vanish. 9 Our knowledge—it’s incomplete. Our prophesies are incomplete. 10 But when what is perfect does come, then what is partial will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child.
I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. As I grew into adulthood, I put aside childish ways.
12 Our view right now is obscure, as if through a mirror, but when perfection comes, we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I am fully known.
13 Three things will last: faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love.