1 Corinthians
Chapter 13
Overview
Paul writes to the community in Corinth about abilities they deeply admire: impressive speech, spiritual insight, knowledge, faith, and extraordinary generosity. Yet he measures all of them by one demanding standard—love. Without love, even the most dazzling achievement is only noise. He then describes love through its actions, showing what it does and refuses to do. Finally, he contrasts our present, partial understanding with the fuller knowledge still to come. Gifts and accomplishments have their season; love is the quiet strength that outlasts them all.
1If I speak in the languages of human beings and even of angels but do not have love, I have become nothing more than a ringing piece of metal or a crashing cymbal.
2If I can deliver messages from God, understand every mystery, and possess all knowledge—and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains—but do not have love, I am nothing.
3If I give away everything I own to feed others, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous. It does not brag or become proud.
5Love does not behave shamefully. It does not insist on getting its own way. It is not easily angered and does not keep a record of wrongs.
6Love does not celebrate injustice. Instead, it celebrates when truth wins.
7Love bears everything, trusts through everything, keeps hoping through everything, and endures everything.
8Love never comes to an end. Messages from God will be brought to an end. Speaking in other languages will stop. Knowledge will be brought to an end.
9For our knowledge is only partial, and the messages we deliver from God are only partial.
10But when what is complete comes, what is partial will be brought to an end.
11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put childish ways behind me.
12For now we see a dim reflection in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now my knowledge is partial, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.
13For now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of them is love.