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The Gift of Love

1Corinthians 13.1-13

¹If I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God's love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

²And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God's love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).

³Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or in order that I may glory, but have not love (God's love in me), I gain nothing.

• ⁴Love endures long and is patient and kind;
• love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy,
• is not boastful or vainglorious,
• does not display itself haughtily.
  
• ⁵It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride);
• it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly.
• Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking;
• it is not touchy or fretful or resentful;
• it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].
  
• ⁶It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
  
• ⁷Love bears up under anything and that comes,
• is ever ready to believe the best of every person,
• its hopes are fadeless under all circimstances, and
• it endures everything [without weakening].
  
• ⁸Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].

As for prophecy (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].
⁹For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect).
¹⁰But when the complete and prefect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).
¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.
¹²For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as in a riddle of enigma], but then [ when prefection comes] we shall se in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imprefectly), but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood [by God].
¹³And so faith, hope, love abide

• [faith - conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and divine things;
• hope - joyful and confident expectatioh of eternal salvation;
• love - true affection for God and man, growing out of God's love for and in us],

these three; but the greatest of these is love.

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