1 Corinthians 13
The more excellent way
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And 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. 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Notes for verses 1–33 entries
Text notes
1 Corinthians 13:3 Other ancient authorities read body that I may glory View in passage
Cross-references
1 Corinthians 13:1 – Psalms 150:5 .
1 Corinthians 13:2 – 1 Corinthians 14:2 ; Matthew 17:20 ; Matthew 21:21 .
4Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Notes for verses 4–72 entries
Cross-references
1 Corinthians 13:5 – 1 Corinthians 10:24 .
1 Corinthians 13:7 – 1 Corinthians 9:12 .
8Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11When 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. 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.