³¹ But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.^(A)

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.^{(B) 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.^(C)

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

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.

²⁰ For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.