³¹ But strive^[a] for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

Love, the More Excellent Way

13 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a ringing brass gong or a clashing cymbal. ² And if I have the gift of prophecy and I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I parcel out all my possessions, and if I hand over my body in order that I will be burned,^[b] but do not have love, it benefits me nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, it does not boast, it does not become conceited, ⁵ it does not behave dishonorably, it is not selfish^[c], it does not become angry, it does not keep a record of wrongs, ⁶ it does not rejoice at unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. But if there are prophecies, they will pass away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but whenever the perfect comes, the 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 set aside the things of a child. ¹² For now we see through a mirror indirectly^[d], but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know completely, just as I have also been completely known. ¹³ And now these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.