Chapter 13

And I point out to you a yet more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of man and of angels, but do not have charity, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, yet do not have charity, I am nothing.

And if I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, yet do not have charity, it profits me nothing.

Charity is patient, is kind; charity does not envy, is not pretentious, is not puffed up,

is not ambitious, is not self-seeking, is not provoked; thinks no evil,

does not rejoice over wickedness, but rejoices with the truth;

bears with all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Contrast with Other Gifts

Charity never fails, whereas prophecies will disappear, and tongues will cease, and knowledge will be destroyed.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part;

but when that which is perfect has come, that which is imperfect will be done away with.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away the things of a child.

We see now through a mirror in an obscure manner, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I have been known.

So there abide faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.