CCChurch CommonsBible Reader

Shared Word Translation

1 Corinthians 13

The More Excellent Way

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love, I have become a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all I possess, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

What Love Is

Love is patient; love is kind. Love is not jealous; love does not boast; it is not arrogant. It is not rude. It does not seek its own. It is not easily provoked. It does not keep account of wrong. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

What Endures

Love never falls. But where there are prophecies, they will be set aside; where there are tongues, they will cease; where there is knowledge, it will be set aside. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will be set aside.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child. When I became an adult, I set aside the things of the child. For now we see through a mirror, in a riddle; but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three. And the greatest of these is love.

Study help

Notes

Translation notes for 1 Corinthians 13.

v01

The escalation from human to angelic speech sets the rhetorical pattern for the chapter: even the highest gift, without love, becomes mere sound.

v02

The threefold "all" (mysteries, knowledge, faith) names the most prized capacities of the Corinthian community. Each is rendered weightless without love.

v03

A textual variant stands here. Some manuscripts read "so that I may be burned" (καυθήσομαι, kauthēsōmai); others read "so that I may boast" (καυχήσωμαι, kauchēsōmai). The earliest and most weighty witnesses support "boast." The translation reflects this reading; the variant is preserved as a question worth carrying.

v04–07

The list moves from disposition (patient, kind) to refusal (not jealous, not arrogant) to action (does not seek its own, does not keep account of wrong) to endurance (bears, believes, hopes, endures). The structure refuses to settle love into either feeling or duty.

v05

"It does not seek its own" preserves the open phrasing of the Greek. Whether the meaning is its own way, its own benefit, or its own self is left for the reader and community to weigh.

v07

The fourfold "all things" is rhetorical accumulation, not a measured claim. Love's reach is described by extension, not by inventory.

v08–10

"Set aside" (καταργηθήσεται) appears three times, framing prophecy and knowledge as provisional. "The complete" (τέλειον) is left untranslated to a single referent; the text does not specify whether it names eschatological fullness, mature understanding, or the fullness of love itself.

v11

The childhood image is not a rebuke of childhood but a description of growth. What was once whole in its season is left behind without contempt.

v12

"Through a mirror, in a riddle" preserves the proverbial cadence of the Greek (δι' ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, di' esoptrou en ainigmati). The image is of partial vision, not poor vision.

v13

The conclusion is rhetorical rather than chronological. Faith, hope, and love are named together not as a sequence but as a triad that abides while the partial passes.

v03

A textual variant stands here.

Study help

Vocabulary

Selected source-language vocabulary for 1 Corinthians 13.

v01

ἀγάπη (agapē)

"Love." A love defined by orientation toward the other rather than by feeling, attraction, or affinity. Distinct from φιλία (friendship) and ἔρως (desire).

v04

μακροθυμεῖ (makrothymei)

"Is patient." Literally "long-tempered"—endurance under provocation rather than indifference to it.

v05

λογίζεται (logizetai)

"Reckon," "keep account of." A bookkeeping term. Love keeps no ledger of wrong.

v07

στέγει (stegei)

"Bears," "covers." The same root as the word for roof; love provides shelter.

v08

πίπτει (piptei)

"Falls." Used of walls, kingdoms, and the defeated. Love does not collapse.

v08

καταργηθήσεται (katargēthēsetai)

"Will be set aside." The verb suggests retirement rather than destruction; what is partial gives way when the whole arrives.

v10

τέλειον (teleion)

"The complete," "the mature." The end-shape of a thing, not its pristine state.

v12

αἴνιγμα (ainigma)

"Riddle." A puzzle that calls for patient interpretation, not a deficiency to be repaired.

v13

μένει (menei)

“Remains," "abides." A verb of dwelling. Faith, hope, and love endure together.