1 - If I speak in the tongues Or [languages] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 - If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 - If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, Some manuscripts [body to the flames] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 - Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5 - It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6 - Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7 - It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 - Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

9 - For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

10 - but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

11 - When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

12 - For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 - And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.