1 Corinthians 13
13
Love: The Superior Way
1If I speak human or angelic tongues#13:1 languages, also in v. 8 but do not have love,#Jn 13:35; 1Jn 4:7–12 I am a noisy gong#Mt 10:9 or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy#1Co 14:1,3–6,22–39; Eph 4:11; 1Th 5:20 and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains#Mt 17:20 but do not have love, I am nothing. 3And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast#13:3 Other mss read body to be burned but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient,#1Th 5:14 love is kind. Love does not envy,#Nm 25:13; Gl 4:17 is not boastful, is not arrogant,#1Co 4:6 5is not rude, is not self-seeking,#Mk 10:45; Php 2:4 is not irritable,#Ac 17:16 and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.#Ps 119:142; Jn 8:14; 14:6 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures#Jms 1:12 all things.
8Love never ends.#Mt 7:25,27; Lk 6:49; 11:17; 13:4; 16:17; Ac 15:16; Heb 11:30; Rv 11:13; 16:19 But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. 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 put aside childish things. 12For now we see only a reflection#13:12 Lit we see indirectly as in a mirror, but then face to face.#1Jn 3:2 Now I know in part, but then I will know fully,#Pr 2:6; Jn 17:3; 1Jn 4:8 as I am fully known.#1Co 8:3; Gl 4:9 13Now these three remain: faith, hope,#1Th 1:3 and love — but the greatest of these is love.
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© 2017 Holman Bible Publishers
1 Corinthians 13
13
SONG 49
8,6,8,6
tune: Howard, 70; St. Andrew, 93.
1 Cor 13
1-13 Though perfect eloquence adorn’d
my sweet persuading tongue,
Though I could speak in higher strains
than ever angel sung;
2 Though prophecy my soul inspir’d,
and made all myst’ries plain:
Yet, were I void of Christian love,
these gifts were all in vain.
3 Nay, though my faith with boundless pow’r
ev’n mountains could remove,
I still am nothing, if I’m void
of charity and love.
4 Although with lib’ral hand I gave
my goods the poor to feed,
Nay, gave my body to the flames,
still fruitless were the deed.
5 Love suffers long; love envies not;
but love is ever kind;
She never boasteth of herself,
nor proudly lifts the mind.
6 Love harbours no suspicious thought,
is patient to the bad;
Griev’d when she hears of sins and crimes,
and in the truth is glad.
7 Love no unseemly carriage shows,
nor selfishly confin’d;
She glows with social tenderness,
and feels for all mankind.
8 Love beareth much, much she believes,
and still she hopes the best;
Love meekly suffers many a wrong,
though sore with hardship press’d.
9 Love still shall hold an endless reign
in earth and heav’n above,
When tongues shall cease, and prophets fail,
and ev’ry gift but love.
10 Here all our gifts imperfect are;
but better days draw nigh,
When perfect light shall pour its rays,
and all those shadows fly.
11 Like children here we speak and think,
amus’d with childish toys;
But when our pow’rs their manhood reach,
we’ll scorn our present joys.
12 Now dark and dim, as through a glass,
are God and truth beheld;
Then shall we see as face to face,
and God shall be unvail’d.
13 Faith, Hope, and Love, now dwell on earth,
and earth by them is blest;
But Faith and Hope must yield to Love,
of all the graces best.
14 Hope shall to full fruition rise,
and Faith be sight above:
These are the means, but this the end;
for saints for ever love.
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First published by the Church of Scotland in 1781.