The Message to Ephesus

2 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands:

² “I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false.^{(A) 3} I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary.^{(B) 4} But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵ Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. ⁶ Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. ⁷ Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.^(C)

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.