I have become a reverberating gong or a clashing cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can understand all secrets and
every form of knowledge,
and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains but have no LOVE,
I am nothing.
Even if I give away all that I have and surrender my body but have no LOVE,
I get nothing out of it.
LOVE is always patience, LOVE is always kind, LOVE is not envious,
LOVE is not vain, LOVE is not arrogant,
Does not rude, does not selfish, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil,
Does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth,
Cover all things, believes the best in all, hopeful in all, and
endures all things.
LOVE never fails. But if there are prophecies, they will be done away with.
If there are tongues languages, they will cease. If there is
knowledge, it will be abolished.
For what we know is incomplete and what we prophesy is incomplete.
But when what is complete comes, then what is incomplete will be done
away with.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and
reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways.
Now we see only a blurred reflection in a mirror, but then we will see
face to face.
Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I
have been fully known.
Right now three things remain: faith, hope, and LOVE. But the greatest
of these is LOVE.