Search the Bible

New American Standard Bible 2020

1 Corinthians 13

1 If 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.
2 If 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.
3 And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may glory, but do not have love, it does me no good.
4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant.
5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered,
6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with.
9 For we know in part and prophesy in part;
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with.
11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known.
13 But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Chapter Summary

Paul exalts love as the greatest way: patient and kind, it never fails, and remains with faith and hope forever.

Book Summary

First Corinthians addresses divisions, immorality, and disorder in the church at Corinth, calling believers to unity in Christ. It contains the great chapter on love, teaching on the Lord's Supper and spiritual gifts, and the defense of the resurrection.