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.^{(A) 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.^(B)

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

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

God Is Powerful and Merciful

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.^(A)

¹⁷ “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.^(B)

²⁸ We know that all things work together^[a] for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.^{(A) 29} For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.^{[b](B) 30} And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.^(C)

God’s Love in Christ Jesus

³¹ What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?^{(D) 32} He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³ Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.^{(E) 34} Who is to condemn? It is Christ^[c] who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.^{(F) 35} Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.^{(H) 38} For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,^{(I) 39} nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Psalm 136

God’s Work in Creation and in History

⁹ God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.^{(A) 10} In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.^(B)

⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.^(A)

Love for Enemies

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’^{(A) 44} But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,^{(B) 45} so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.^{(C) 46} For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.^(D)