LOVE

I may be able to speak the languages

of human beings and even of angels,

but if I have no love,

 my speech is no more than

 a noisy gong or a clanging bell.

 I may have the gift of inspired preaching;

 I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets;

 I may have all the faith needed

 to move mountains—

but if I have no love, I am nothing.

 I may give away everything I have,

and even give up my body to be burned—

but if I have no love, this does me no good.

Love is patient and kind;

it is not jealous or conceited or proud;

 love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable;

 love does not keep a record of wrongs;

  love is not happy with evil,

but is happy with the truth.

 Love never gives up; and its faith, hope,

 and patience never fail.

Love is eternal.

 There are inspired messages, but they are temporary;

there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues,

 but they will cease;

there is knowledge, but it will pass.

 For our gifts of knowledge

and of inspired messages are only partial;

  but when what is perfect comes,

 then what is partial will disappear.

When I was a child,

 my speech, feelings, and thinking

were all those of a child;

now that I am an adult,

 I have no more use for childish ways.

 What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror;

then we shall see face-to-face.

What I know now is only partial;

 then it will be complete—

as complete as God's knowledge of me.

 Meanwhile these three remain:

faith, hope, and love;

and the greatest of these is love.