13 If I speak in the tongues [Or languages ] of men or of angels but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but does not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[Some manuscripts body to the flames ] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hope, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
13:1–13 This chapter involves a shift of perspective and a
new point. All or part of the material may once have been an independent piece
in the style of Hellenistic eulogies of virtues, but it is now integrated, by
editing, into the context of 1 Cor 12–14 (cf. the reference to tongues and
prophecy) and into the letter as a whole (cf. the references to knowledge and
to behavior). The function of 1 Cor 13 within the discussion of spiritual gifts
is to relativize all the charisms by contrasting them with the more basic,
pervasive, and enduring value that gives them their purpose and their
effectiveness. The rhetoric of this chapter is striking.
13:1–3 An inventory of gifts, arranged in careful gradation:
neither tongues (on the lowest rung), nor prophecy, knowledge, or faith, nor
even self-sacrifice has value unless informed by love.
13:4–7 This paragraph is developed by personification and
enumeration, defining love by what it does or does not do. The Greek contains
fifteen verbs; it is natural to translate many of them by adjectives in
English.
13:8–13 The final paragraph announces its topic, Love never
fails (1 Cor 13:8), then develops the permanence of love in contrast to the
charisms (1 Cor 13:9–12), and finally asserts love’s superiority even over the other
“theological virtues” (1 Cor 13:13).
13:13 In speaking of love, Paul is led by spontaneous
association to mention faith and hope as well. They are already a well-known
triad (cf. 1 Thes 1:3), three interrelated (cf. 1 Cor 13:7) features of The Christian life, more fundamental than any particular charism. The greatest…is
love: love is operative even within the other members of the triad (1 Cor
13:7), so that it has a certain primacy among them. Or, if the perspective is
temporal, love will remain (cf. “never fails,” 1 Cor 13:8) even when faith has
yielded to sight and hope to possession.
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