I Corinthians 13
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but I have not agape-love, I am become sounding brass or clashing cymbal. 2 And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith so as to remove mountains but I have not agape-love, I am nothing. 3 And if I divide all my possessions, and if I deliver up my body that I be burnt, but I have not agape-love, I have helped nothing.4
Agape-love is long-suffering
Agape-love [is] kind, is not jealous,
Agape-love does not boast, is not puffed up,
5
Agape-love does not behave disgracefully,
does not seek its own,
does not exasperate,
does not reckon evil,
6
does not rejoice in injustice,
but co-rejoices with faith;
7
bears everything,
believes everything,
hopes everything,
endures everything.
8
Agape-love never fails,
but whether prophecy,
they will be abolished,
whether tongues,
they will cease,
whether knowledge,
they will be abolished.
9
For in part we know and in part we prophesy,
10
But when the complete comes, the partial will be abolished.
11
When I was [a] child
I was speaking as [a] child,
I was thinking as [a] child,
I was reasoning as [a] child,
But when I became [a] man I abolished the [things] of the child.
12
For we still see through [a] mirror darkly1
But then face to face.
Now I know in part,
But then I will know just as I am also known.
13
But now abides faith, hope agape-love,
These three,
But the greater of these [is] agape-love.
1the Greek word [AINIGMA], meaning both "dimly" and "as in a riddle"