1 Corinthians 13 (LSB)

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Chapter Text

13:1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

13:2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

13:3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

13:4 Love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up;

13:5 it does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered;

13:6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

13:7 it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

13:8 Love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

13:10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

13:11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things.

13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

13:13 But now abide faith, hope, love—these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "all things", "faith", "speak", "tongues", "angels", "love", "become", and "noisy". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "all things" and "faith", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The local LSB text gives this verse as the immediate unit, so "all things" and "faith" carries the first interpretive weight. In 1 Corinthians context, the local focus is Christ, faith, and discipleship.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "all things" and "faith" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.