Saint Paul's 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

(1 Cor 13).

deussai@yahoo.co.uk