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1 Corinthians 13

1 Corinthians 13 Summary, Context, and Full Chapter

1 Corinthians 13 places love at the center of Christian life. It shows that gifts, insight, and sacrifice mean little without love, then describes what love looks like in daily conduct. The chapter ends by lifting faith, hope, and love, with love given the highest place.

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What happens in 1 Corinthians 13?

Paul teaches that even striking spiritual gifts, deep knowledge, strong faith, and costly generosity are empty without love. He then gives a clear picture of love in action: patient, kind, humble, truthful, forgiving, and steadfast. Love does not delight in evil, but stands with truth. The chapter also says that gifts and partial understanding are temporary, while love endures. Paul closes by contrasting present incompleteness with the fuller knowledge that will come, and by naming faith, hope, and love as what remains, with love the greatest.

This chapter comes after Paul addresses spiritual gifts and the unity of the church body in 1 Corinthians 12. It leads into chapter 14, where he gives practical guidance for worship and the proper use of gifts. Chapter 13 stands between them as the standard that should shape everything else.

Themes to notice

  • Love above giftsSpiritual abilities matter, but they have no value when they are not joined to love.
  • The character of loveLove is shown through patience, humility, truth, and endurance rather than self-interest.
  • What lastsGifts and partial knowledge will pass, but faith, hope, and love remain, with love foremost.

Questions for 1 Corinthians 13

  • How does this chapter change the way spiritual gifts should be understood and used?
  • Which descriptions of love challenge your current attitudes or habits most directly?
  • Why does Paul place love above faith and hope at the end of the chapter?

Read the full text of 1 Corinthians 13 below, then open it in the reader to highlight, take notes, or ask follow-up Bible questions. No account is required to read.

1 Corinthians 13

Love

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.3If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs.6Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth.7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed.9For we know in part and we prophesy in part,10but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.13And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

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