Love
1 What if I could speak
all languages of humans
and even of angels?
If I did not love others,
I would be nothing more
than a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal.
2 What if I could prophesy
and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge?
And what if I had faith
that moved mountains?
I would be nothing,
unless I loved others.
3 What if I gave away all
that I owned
and let myself
be burned alive?
I would gain nothing,
unless I loved others.
4 Love is patient and kind,
never jealous, boastful,
proud, or 5 rude.
Love isn't selfish
or quick tempered.
It doesn't keep a record
of wrongs that others do.
6 Love rejoices in the truth,
but not in evil.
7 Love is always supportive,
loyal, hopeful,
and trusting.
8 Love never fails!
Everyone who prophesies
will stop,
and unknown languages
will no longer
be spoken.
All that we know
will be forgotten.
9 We don't know everything,
and our prophecies
are not complete.
10 But what is perfect
will someday appear,
and what isn't perfect
will then disappear.
11 When we were children,
we thought and reasoned
as children do.
But when we grew up,
we quit our childish ways.
12 Now all we can see of God
is like a cloudy picture
in a mirror.
Later we will see him
face to face.
We don't know everything,
but then we will,
just as God completely
understands us.
13 For now there are faith,
hope, and love.
But of these three,
the greatest is love.
1 Though I speake with the tongues of men and Angels, and haue not loue, I am as sounding brasse, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I had the gift of prophecie, and knewe all secrets and all knowledge, yea, if I had all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines and had not loue, I were nothing. 3 And though I feede the poore with all my goods, and though I giue my body, that I be burned, and haue not loue, it profiteth me nothing. 4 Loue suffreth long: it is bountifull: loue enuieth not: loue doeth not boast it selfe: it is not puffed vp: 5 It doeth no vncomely thing: it seeketh not her owne things: it is not prouoked to anger: it thinketh not euill: 6 It reioyceth not in iniquitie, but reioyceth in the trueth: 7 It suffreth all things: it beleeueth all things: it hopeth all things: it endureth all things. 8 Loue doeth neuer fall away, though that prophecyings be abolished, or the tongues cease, or knowledge vanish away. 9 For we knowe in part, and we prophecie in part. 10 But when that which is perfect, is come, then that which is in part, shalbe abolished. 11 When I was a childe, I spake as a childe, I vnderstoode as a childe, I thought as a childe: but when I became a man, I put away childish thinges. 12 For nowe we see through a glasse darkely: but then shall wee see face to face. Nowe I know in part: but then shall I know euen as I am knowen. 13 And nowe abideth faith, hope and loue, euen these three: but the chiefest of these is loue.