1 Corinthians 13
13
Love Is the Greatest of All
1If I speak in the languages of human beings or even of angels, but I don’t have love, I’m only a loud gong or a noisy cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can understand all the secret things of God and know everything about him, and if I have enough faith to move mountains, but I don’t have love, I’m nothing at all. 3If I give everything I have to the poor, and I endure so much hardship that I can brag about it, but I don’t have love, that doesn’t do me any good at all.
4Love is patient and kind. It doesn’t want what belongs to other people. It doesn’t brag, it isn’t proud, 5and it doesn’t treat other people with disrespect. Love doesn’t look out for its own interests. It doesn’t become angry easily. It doesn’t keep track of other people’s wrongs. 6Love takes no joy in bad things happening, but it’s full of joy when the truth prevails. 7Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always endures.
8Love never fails. But prophecies will end; unknown languages will go silent; knowledge will disappear. 9Now we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part. 10But when what is complete arrives, the things that are not complete will disappear. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I had the understanding of a child. But when I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12Now we see only a dim reflection of things, as if we were seeing them in a foggy mirror. But someday we will see clearly, face to face. Now I know in part; then I will know completely, just as God knows me completely.
13These three things will never end: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
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Radiate™ New Testament
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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.