About agape love

1If I speak the languages of men, even of angels, ¹⁷¹but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

2And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, ¹⁷²but have not love, I am nothing.

3Even if I give away all my possessions and hand over my body to be burned, ¹⁷³but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love described

4Love is patient and kind; love does not envy; love does not brag, is not proud,

5is not indecent, is not self-seeking, is not ‘short-fused’, is not malicious; ¹⁷⁴

6it does not take pleasure in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

7it bears all, believes all, hopes all, endures all; ¹⁷⁵

8love never fails. Love contrasted Now as for prophecies, they will be set aside; as for languages, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will be superseded;

9since we know in part and prophesy in part.

10But whenever the complete should come, then the ‘in part’ will be done away with.

11(When I was a small child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; but when I became a man, I put away the things of the child.)

12Because now we see blurred images as in a metal mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also am fully known. ¹⁷⁶

13For now these three obtain: faith, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love. ¹⁷⁷