² If I have the gift of prophecy
and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains
but have not love,
    I am nothing.

³ If I give away all that I own
and if I hand over my body so I might boast^[a]
but have not love,
    I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient,
love is kind,
it does not envy,
it does not brag,
it is not puffed up,
⁵ it does not behave inappropriately,
it does not seek its own way,
it is not provoked,
it keeps no account of wrong,
⁶ it does not rejoice over injustice
    but rejoices in the truth;
⁷ it bears all things,
it believes all things,
it hopes all things,
it endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails—
but where there are prophecies,
    they will pass away;
where there are tongues,
    they will cease;
where there is knowledge,
    it will pass away.

⁹ For we know in part
and we prophesy in part;
¹⁰ but when that which is perfect has come,
    then that which is partial will pass away.

¹¹ When 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 away childish things.

¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly,
    but then face to face.
Now I know in part,
    but then I will know fully,
    even as I have been fully known.

¹³ But now these three remain—
    faith, hope, and love.
    And the greatest of these is love.