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The Excellence of Love
1If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may #13.3: I.e., in martyrdomglory, but do not have love, it does me no good.
4Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7it #13.7: Lit covers all thingskeeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never fails; but if there are gifts of #13.8: Lit propheciesprophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9For we know in part and prophesy in part; 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. 11When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I #13.11: Lit have become...have done away withbecame a man, I did away with childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror #13.12: Lit in a riddledimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. 13But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the #13.13: Lit greatergreatest of these is love.