The Song of Love
Love suffered long -- Love is kind and true
Love vaunted not itself -- Love is not puffed up
Love is not easily provoked -- doth not behave itself unseemly
Love seek not her own -- Love never fail
Love rejoice not in iniquity -- but rejoice in the truth;
Love bear all things -- Love believeth all things
Love hope all things -- Love endure all things.
Love envies not -- Love think no evil
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have not Love,
I am become as sounding brass, or a
tinkling cymbal.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor
and have not Love,
And though I give my body to be burned,
it profited me nothing.
And though I have all knowledge and understand all mysteries
but have not Love
And though I have the gift of prophecy
and have all faith so that I could remove mountains,
I am nothing.
But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail
Whether there be tongues, they shall cease
Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come,
Then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child;
But when I became a man, I put away what childish was.
For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face: Now I know in part;
But then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abides Hope and Love and Faith, these three...
But the greatest of them all is LOVE.
