If I talk with the languages of human beings and of the messengers, but don’t possess love, I have become a ringing brass or clanging cymbal. And if I possess prophecy and see all the mysteries and all the knowledge and if I possess all the trust so as to transfer mountains from one place to another, but don’t possess love, I am nothing. And if I would feed all of my belongings bit by bit like a nurse to others and if I would hand over my body so that I might be consumed by flames, but don’t possess love, I get no benefit from it at all.
Love has a long temper with people, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it doesn’t inflate itself, it doesn’t act disgracefully, it doesn’t look for its own things, it isn’t irritated, it doesn’t keep a ledger of the bad thing, it doesn’t celebrate over wrongdoing, but it does celebrate together with Reality; it protects everything, trusts everything, hopes everything, endures everything.
Love doesn’t fall at any time; yet either prophecies will be rendered inert, or languages will be stopped, or knowledge will be rendered inert. Because we know by experience [only] partially and we prophesy [only] partially, but when what has been brought to completion should come, what is partial will be rendered inert. When I was a nursing baby, I was talking like a nursing baby, I was minded like a nursing baby, I reasoned like a nursing baby. When I had become a man, I rendered the things of a nursing baby inert. Because at present we see through a mirror by means of a riddle, but at that time we will know by observation just like we are also known by observation. Yet for now these three things stay put, trust, hope, and love; yet the better of these is love.
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