1 Corinthians 13

Love (agapē) is the surpassing gift and the way Paul shows them. If he speaks in the tongues of mortals and angels but has not love, he is a noisy gong or clanging cymbal; if he has prophetic powers and understands all mysteries and all knowledge, and if he has all faith so as to remove mountains, but has not love, he is nothing; if he gives away all his possessions and surrenders his body, but has not love, he gains nothing. Love is patient, is kind, does not envy or boast, is not arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; prophecy will pass away, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass away, for we know in part and prophesy in part. When the complete comes, the partial will pass away, and we will see face to face rather than in a mirror dimly; we will know fully as we have been fully known. For now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:1

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal — even ecstatic utterance (glossai anthrōpōn—human languages—or angelic speech) without agapē (love) becomes mere noise, an inanimate instrument producing hollow sound; the Corinthians' prized gift of tongues is reduced to percussion without meaning or power.

1 Corinthians 13:2

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 do not have love, I am nothing — even prophecy, cosmological wisdom, comprehensive gnōsis, and mountain-moving pistis pale to insignificance without love; Paul uses hyperbolic accumulation to show that all great spiritual accomplishments amount to ouden (nothing, zero) apart from love's animating principle.

1 Corinthians 13:3

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing — even the radical self-surrender of almsgiving (psōmizō, to feed by morsels) and martyrdom (paradidōmi, to hand over the body to burning) profit nothing if motivation is loveless; this cuts to the heart: action without love is mere performance, hollow display.

1 Corinthians 13:4

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud — Paul defines love through a series of stative verbs and negations: makrothymia (patience, long-suffering), chrēstotēs (kindness, usefulness), non-zēlos (non-envious), non-perpereuomai (non-boastful), non-physioō (not puffed up with arrogance); these are the antidotes to the Corinthian vices of impatience, harshness, jealousy, and pride.

1 Corinthians 13:5

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs — love does not aschēmoneō (behave shamefully toward others), is not idios zeteo (self-interested), is not paroxynō (quickly irritated, thin-skinned), and does not logizomai (calculate, keep accounts of) the kakos (evil, wrongs); this describes a love undefensive, not calculating, eager to forgive, refusing the ledger of grievance.

1 Corinthians 13:6

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth — agapē does not chairō (rejoice) in the adikia (wrongdoing) of others, whether that wrongdoing is theirs or a rival's; rather it synchairō (rejoices together) with alētheia (truth), the reality of God's redemptive work, standing always on the side of truth over mere victory.

1 Corinthians 13:7

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres — the fourfold 'always' (panta) reveals love's fundamental orientation: it stegō (covers, protects), pisteuō (believes, trusts), elpizō (hopes), hypomeō (endures, remains steadfast) in all circumstances; this is love as active loyalty against despair and cynicism.

1 Corinthians 13:8

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 — agapē never ekpiptō (falls away, fails), establishing its eschatological permanence; by contrast, prophecy (when the telos comes), tongues, and gnōsis are pauo (cease), revealing their temporary, preparatory nature in the economy of salvation.

1 Corinthians 13:9

For we know in part and we prophesy in part — the partiality (meros, fragment) of our present knowledge and prophecy acknowledges the incompleteness of the age before consummation; we prophesy from fragments, in the mirror dimly, with the limitations of the not-yet.

1 Corinthians 13:10

But when completeness comes, what is in part disappears — hotan de elthē to teleios (when the perfect/complete comes), to ek merous (the partial) katargeō (is abolished, rendered inactive); the teleios is the eschatological fullness when Christ returns and the partial gifts give way to face-to-face vision.

1 Corinthians 13:11

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 — Paul uses the universal experience of growing up (nepios/tēlikos) to illustrate the transition from the church's infancy (pneumatika gifts) to maturity (love); childhood ways are not evil but are transcended by adulthood.

1 Corinthians 13:12

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 — the esoptron (mirror) of 1 Corinthians 13:12 reflects dimly (ainigmatōs, in riddle-form) but will give way to prosōpon pros prosōpon (face to face) vision; the knowledge of God will be complete (epignōsis) as God's knowledge of us is now complete, a mutuality of knowing.

1 Corinthians 13:13

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love — pistis (faith), elpis (hope), and agapē (love) are the fundamental Christian virtues, but Paul declares agapē greatest (meizon), because faith and hope are oriented to what is not yet fully present, while love is the present reality of Christ's self-giving and must characterize the church now and eternally.