1 Corinthians 12:29-14:5

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work powerful deeds? ³⁰ Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?^{(A) 31} But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.^(B)

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. ² 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.^{(C) 3} 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.^(D)

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant^{(E) 5} or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs;^{(F) 6} it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.^{(G) 7} It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.^(H)

⁸ 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. ⁹ 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.^{(I) 13} And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

Gifts of Prophecy and Tongues

14 Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts and especially that you may prophesy.^{(J) 2} For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God, for no one understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit.^{(K) 3} But those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.^{(L) 4} Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church. ⁵ Now I would like all of you to speak in tongues but even more to prophesy. One who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.^(M)