Opening the chapter…
If I could speak with all the languages of humans and angels, but if I did not have love, all my talking would be like the sound of a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I could proclaim messages for God, and if I could explain secret truths about God, and if I trusted in God so much that I could move a mountain, but if I did not have love, I would be worth nothing.
If I gave away all I own to feed the poor, or if I sacrificed myself to be burned to rescue someone else, but if I did not have love, I would gain nothing.
If you have love, you will endure hardships with joy. If you have love, you will be kind to others. If you have love, you will not resent that other people possess things you do not have. If you have love, you will not boast about yourself or be proud.
If you have love, you will not abuse people. You will not live to please yourself. No one will be able to quickly make you angry. You will not keep track of any wrongs you have suffered.
If you have love, you will not be happy if anyone does wicked things; instead, you will be happy when people are faithful to God.
If you have love, you will endure everything that happens to you. You will trust that God will do the best things for people. You will trust in God regardless of what happens. You will obey God regardless of what hardships you are facing.
Love never stops. Those who are able to speak God's messages, speak in strange languages, or know hidden truths, do these things only for a while. One day they will stop doing these things.
Now we know only a small part of all there is to know. Those who proclaim God's messages do so only partially.
But when things are complete, everything that is partial or incomplete will end.
When I was a small child, I talked as a child talks, I thought as a child thinks, and I made decisions as a child makes decisions. But when I became an adult, I stopped acting like a child, and I started acting like an adult.
What we understand now, we understand very imperfectly, not well at all. But then, when we see Christ, we will see him face to face. Now I know only part of what is true. But then I will know him fully, just as he knows me fully.
So now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these three things is love.
Source
Unlocked Dynamic Bible. Original work of the Unlocked Dynamic Bible in English available at https://unfoldingword.org/udb/. By the Door43 World Missions Community (Wycliffe Associates release v19-10); based on A Translation for Translators by Ellis W. Deibler, Jr. (CC BY-SA 4.0). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Source: Door43 WycliffeAssociates/en_udb release v19-10. Changes: reformatted for display (USFM to verses); no wording changed. Audio (including text-to-speech) and other adaptations are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Where a verse number appears twice in the source, the first copy is shown. Editorial rendering: in this app the divine name "Yahweh" is displayed and read aloud as "God" (and "Yahweh God" as "God"). The stored text and the imported source are unchanged; this is a display-layer substitution, not part of the translation.
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