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The Gift of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And 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.(A) If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 13.3 Other ancient authorities read body to be burned

13 If I speak in the tongues[a](A) of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy(B) and can fathom all mysteries(C) and all knowledge,(D) and if I have a faith(E) that can move mountains,(F) but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor(G) and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b](H) but do not have love, I gain nothing.

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Corinthians 13:1 Or languages
  2. 1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts body to the flames

Love 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. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When 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. 12 For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, 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.(A) 13 And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

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Love never fails. But where there are prophecies,(A) they will cease; where there are tongues,(B) they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part(C) and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes,(D) what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood(E) behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;(F) then we shall see face to face.(G) Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.(H)

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.(I) But the greatest of these is love.(J)

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Proclaiming Christ Crucified

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the testimony[a] of God to you with superior speech or wisdom.(A) For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were made not with persuasive words of wisdom[b] but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power,(B) so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

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Footnotes

  1. 2.1 Other ancient authorities read mystery
  2. 2.4 Other ancient authorities read the persuasiveness of wisdom

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom(A) as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[a] For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.(B) I came to you(C) in weakness(D) with great fear and trembling.(E) My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words,(F) but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,(G) so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.(H)

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Corinthians 2:1 Some manuscripts proclaimed to you God’s mystery

12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13 And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.[a](A)

14 Those who are unspiritual[b] do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.(B) 15 Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.

16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord
    so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 2.13 Or interpreting spiritual things spiritually or comparing spiritual things with spiritual
  2. 2.14 Or natural

12 What we have received is not the spirit(A) of the world,(B) but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom(C) but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[a] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God(D) but considers them foolishness,(E) and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit(F) makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord
    so as to instruct him?”[b](G)

But we have the mind of Christ.(H)

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Corinthians 2:13 Or Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual
  2. 1 Corinthians 2:16 Isaiah 40:13