Hymn Of Love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,

but have not love,

I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers,

and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,

and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,

but have not love,

I am nothing.

If I give away all I have,

and if I deliver my body to be burned,

but have not love,

I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind;

love is not jealous or boastful;

it is not arrogant or rude.

Love does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

Love bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never ends;

as for prophecies, they will pass away;

as for tongues, they will cease;

as for knowledge, it will pass away.

For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;

but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.

When I was a child,
I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child;
when I became a man,

I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly,

but then face to face.

Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully,

even as I have been fully understood.

So faith,

hope,

love

abide, these three;

but the greatest of these

is LOVE.

(Chapter Thirteen of St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians).