1 Corinthians 13
13
The Gift of Love
1If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,#13.3 Other ancient authorities read body to be burned but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never ends. 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 only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete 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 an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly,#13.12 Gk in a riddle but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Currently Selected:
1 Corinthians 13: NRSV
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
First published by the Church of Scotland in 1781.