or varieties of the gift of `tongues.'
012:029 Are all Apostles? Are all Prophets? Are all teachers?
012:030 Have all miraculous powers? Have all ability to cure diseases?
Do all speak in `tongues'? Do all interpret?
012:031 But always seek to excel in the greater gifts. And now I will
point out to you a way of life which transcends all others.
013:001 If I can speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but am
destitute of Love, I have but become a loud-sounding trumpet
or a clanging cymbal.
013:002 If I possess the gift of prophecy and am versed in all mysteries
and all knowledge, and have such absolute faith that I can
remove mountains, but am destitute of Love, I am nothing.
013:003 And if I distribute all my possessions to the poor,
and give up my body to be burned, but am destitute of Love,
it profits me nothing.
013:004 Love is patient and kind. Love knows neither envy nor jealousy.
Love is not forward and self-assertive, nor boastful and conceited.
013:005 She does not behave unbecomingly, nor seek to aggrandize herself,
nor blaze out in passionate anger, nor brood over wrongs.
013:006 She finds no pleasure in injustice done to others, but joyfully
sides with the truth.
013:007 She knows how to be silent. She is full of trust, full of hope,
full of patient endurance.
013:008 Love never fails. But if there are prophecies, they will be
done away with; if there are languages, they will cease;
if there is knowledge, it will be brought to an end.
013:009 For our knowledge is imperfect, and so is our prophesying;
013:010 but when the perfect state of things is come, all that is
imperfect will be brought to an end.
013:011 When I was a child, I talked like a child, felt like a child,