1 Corinthians · Chapter 13 · 13 verses
1 Corinthians 13
About this chapter
1 Corinthians 13 — Early Church Expansion
Paul — Apostle and church planter, writing to address divisions in Corinth. Set in Ephesus (Paul writing to Corinth). In the middle of correcting the Corinthians' spiritual gift obsession, Paul pivots to describe the 'most excellent way' — love. He paints love not as a feeling but as patient, kind actions that don't envy or boast, showing how love makes all spiritual gifts meaningful while lasting beyond them all.
“1 Corinthians 13:4-5” — 13:4-5
Paul elevates love as the supreme virtue that gives meaning to all spiritual activity and relationships.
Read when: Read this when you need a reality check on what real love looks like in your relationships and daily interactions.
1If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don't have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don't have love, I am nothing. 3If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don't have love, it profits me nothing. 4Love is patient and is kind; love doesn't envy. Love doesn't brag, is not proud, 5doesn't behave itself inappropriately, doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; 6doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; 10but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. 11When 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 childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. 13But now faith, hope, and love remain--these three. The greatest of these is love.