Jeremiah’s Call and Commission

⁴ Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,

⁶ Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”^{(B) 7} But the Lord said to me,

⁹ Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me,

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.

²¹ Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²² All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”^{(A) 23} He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ”^{(B) 24} And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.^{(C) 25} But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land,^{(D) 26} yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷ There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”^{(E) 28} When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹ They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.^{(F) 30} But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.^(G)