1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I have been the brass of echoes, and the shouting cymbal.
2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge; and if I have all faith to remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.
3 And if I feed out all my goods, and if I deliver my body that I be burned, and have not love, I am profited nothing.
4 Love is slow to anger, possesses kindness; love envies not; love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up,
5 It demeans itself not unbecomingly, seeks not the things of itself, is not irritated, reckons no evil;
6 Rejoices not at injustice, and rejoices with the truth;
7 Covers all things, believes all, hopes all things, endures all. '
8 Love never falters: but whether gifts of prophecies, they shall be left unemployed; whether tongues, they shall cease; whether knowledge, it shall be left unemployed.
9 For we know by parts, and we prophesy by parts.
10 And when the perfected come, then shall that by parts be left unemployed.
11 When I was a child, as a child I spake, as a child I thought, as a child I reckoned: and when I had become a man, I left unemployed the things of a child.
12 For now we see by a mirror in an enigma; then face to face: now I know by parts; and then shall I know as I was known.
13 And now remains faith, hope, love, these three; and the greater of these, love.