1If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2If 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 don’t have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
4Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, 5doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; 6doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with. 11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. 13But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.
The apostle Paul, in verses 1-3 of this chapter, uses exaggeration to emphasize the superiority of the virtue of love over the exercise of the gifts of grace (charismata). Jesus, as well, uses exaggeration in his teaching, such as calling for a person to cut off his hand if it should offend.
Some have thought that 13:1 speaks of an angelic language that Christians should seek, but this is not Paul's meaning. So then, should one even be able to speak in a heavenly language, this means nothing without the expression of love. Each verse contains an exaggeration of the height of a gift and its emptiness if not accompanied by love. So if one exercises the gift of prophecy or knowledge to the nth degree, without love it is worthless. Should one have faith to remove mountains without love (gift of faith), one is nothing. To give away everything one possessed (the gift of giving) without love, it has no benefit. One should not understand that the apostle Paul really claims all of these capabilities, or thinks others would, but that even it this were the case, it would pale into insignificance without love.