1If I shall speak with every human and Angelic language and have no love in me, I shall be clanging brass or a noise-making cymbal. 2And if I have prophecy, and I know all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so that I may remove mountains, and I have no love in me, I would be nothing. 3And if I should feed everything that I have to the poor, and if I hand over my body to be burned up and I have no love in me, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient and sweet; love does not envy; love is not upset neither puffed up. 5Love does not commit what is shameful, neither does it seek its own; it is not provoked, neither does it entertain evil thoughts, 6Rejoices not in evil, but rejoices in the truth, 7Endures all things, believes all things, hopes all, bears all.

8Love never fails; for prophecies shall cease, tongues shall be silenced and knowledge will be nothing; 9For we know partially and we prophesy partially, 10But when perfection shall come, then that which is partial shall be nothing. 11When I was a child, I was speaking as a child, I was led as a child, I was thinking as a child, but when I became a man, I ceased these childish things. 12Now we see as in a mirror, in an allegory, but then face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I shall know as I am known. 13For there are these three things that endure: Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.