If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.

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.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

Love never ends.

​

As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

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. 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.

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