New Living Translation NLT
English Standard Version ESV
1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
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If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.
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And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
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If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud
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Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
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or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
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it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!
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Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!
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For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
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but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
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When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
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For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
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So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2025