Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

The nature and attributes of love.

13 Though I spoke with the tongues of men and angels, and yet had no love, I would be even as sounding brass, or as a ringing cymbal. ² And though I could prophesy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge – yea if I had all faith, so that I could move mountains out of their places – and yet had no love, I would be nothing. ³ And if I bestowed all my goods to feed the poor, and even if I gave my body to be burned, and yet had no love, it profits me nothing.

⁴ Love suffers long, and is kind. Love does not envy. Love is not contrary, does not swell up, ⁵ does not deal dishonourably, seeks not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not take pleasure in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ suffers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures in all things. ⁸ Though prophesying fail, or tongues cease, or knowledge vanish away, yet love never falls away.

⁹ For our knowledge is imperfect, and our prophesying is imperfect. ¹⁰ But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is imperfect shall be put away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I imagined as a child. But as soon as I was a man, I put away childishness. ¹² Now we see as is reflected to us in a mysterious word, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know imperfectly, but then I shall know even as I am known. ¹³ Now faith, hope, and love, these three things abide, but the chief of these is love.

²¹ And he began and said to them, This day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.

²² And they all witnessed him, and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth, and said, Is this not Joseph’s son?

²³ And he said to them, You may very well say to me this maxim: Physician, heal thyself; the things that we heard were done in Capernaum, do the same here likewise in your own country.

²⁴ And he said, Truly I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. ²⁵ But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when heaven was shut for three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; ²⁶ but to none of them was Elijah sent save into Sarepta, a city of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. ²⁷ And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and yet none of them was healed except Naaman of Syria.

²⁸ And as many as were in the synagogue, when they heard that, were filled with wrath. ²⁹ And they rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him even to the edge of the hill on which their town was built, to cast him down headlong. ³⁰ But he went his way even through the midst of them,