1 Corinthians 13

¹If I speak in the tongues of people and of angels, but I have no love, I have become sounding bronze or a clanging cymbal. ²If I possess prophecy and know every mystery and all knowledge, and if I possess all faith so as to move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing. ³If I distribute everything I own to feed others, and if I hand over my body so that I will be burned, but have no love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient; love acts kindly. Love is not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up, ⁵does not behave disgracefully, does not seek its own interests, is not provoked, does not keep account of wrong. ⁶It does not rejoice over injustice but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It bears everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything.

⁸Love never falls away. But prophecies will be brought to an end; tongues will cease; knowledge will be brought to an end. ⁹For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; ¹⁰but when what is complete comes, what is partial will be brought to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, my speech was a child's, my thinking was a child's, my reasoning was a child's. When I became a man, I brought the ways of childhood to an end. ¹²For now we see by means of a mirror, in a riddle, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known. ¹³Now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; and the greatest of them is love.

Translation notes 3

13:1–3 — Speech, gifts, and self-giving. The conditions are extravagant examples, not claims that Paul has personally done each thing. “Sounding bronze” could be a gong or another resonant bronze object. The base reads “so that I will be burned.” A strongly supported different Greek reading is “so that I may boast”; this is a textual variant, not another meaning of the same word. Neither reading makes dramatic self-giving sufficient without love. “To feed others” retains the feeding sense of the distribution verb; “others” supplies its implied recipients.

13:4–7 — Love in action. The description uses verbs, including acting kindly and refusing to brag or become puffed up. “Does not keep account of wrong” can also be understood as not reckoning evil against someone. “Bears everything” may include covering or protecting. The repeated “everything” is retained rather than rewritten with exceptions; in context it describes love's persistent orientation, not an instruction to treat falsehood as truth.

13:8–13 — Partial and complete. “Brought to an end” repeats the same Greek verb, including its use for leaving childhood behind. “What is complete” is also translated “the perfect”; the passage does not identify it as a completed biblical canon. The mirror and riddle convey indirect perception, contrasted with face-to-face encounter. “Fully” makes the stronger knowing verb explicit, without asserting exhaustive divine knowledge. “Child” renders the word used for “infants” at 3:1; here speech and reasoning make the broader childhood sense suitable. “Man” retains the adult male term in Paul's autobiographical comparison.