1 Corinthians 13 — Love and the coming fullness — Greek text and reception
Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.
1 Corinthians 13 — Love and the coming fullness
Gifts and sacrifices without love
Verse 13:1
Greek–English Translation
If I speak in the tongues of human beings and of angels but have no love, I have become sounding bronze or a clanging cymbal.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The conditional speaks of human and angelic tongues; it is not silently converted into an account of a particular experience Paul reports having had.
Verse 13:2
Greek–English Translation
And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 13:3
Greek–English Translation
And if I distribute all my possessions as food, and if I hand over my body so that I will be burned, but have no love, I gain nothing.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The selected reading is kauthēsomai, I will be burned, not kauchēsōmai, I may boast. Distribute as food expresses psōmisō; the verse names no explicit poor recipients. The remarkable self-offering is subordinate to the argument about love.
Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 13:3]: The apparatus assigns the selected future kauthēsomai to NIV, kauthēsōmai to Treg and RP, and kauchēsōmai, I may boast, to WH and NA28.
Saints [CHR-1COR-32 §§8–10]: Chrysostom argues that even complete giving and bodily self-sacrifice cannot replace love of one’s neighbor; he considers both rhetorical exaggeration and giving without sympathy.
NA28: καυχήσωμαι, "that I may boast" (SBLGNT καυθήσομαι, "that I will be burned", with the NIV text); the rendering above follows SBLGNT; NA28 would read "so that I may boast".
The character of love
Verse 13:4
Greek–English Translation
Love is patient; love is kind. Love is not jealous, does not boast, is not puffed up,
Textual and Reception Notes
Saints [CHR-1COR-33 §1]: Chrysostom pairs patient endurance with active kindness: love should calm an offender rather than use endurance to provoke contempt.
Verse 13:5
Greek–English Translation
does not behave shamefully, does not seek its own interests, is not provoked, does not keep account of wrong,
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Does not keep account of wrong renders ou logizetai to kakon, the accounting expression. It is not expanded into a demand to deny that harm occurred.
Verse 13:6
Greek–English Translation
does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 13:7
Greek–English Translation
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The fourfold all things and distinct verbs are retained. Stegei can express bearing or covering; bears is adopted without silently inserting concealment of wrongdoing.
Saints [CLEM-1COR 49]: Clement connects love’s endurance with the rejection of schism and with Christ’s self-giving.
What is partial and what remains
Verse 13:8
Greek–English Translation
Love never falls. But prophecies will be brought to an end; tongues will cease; knowledge will be brought to an end.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Falls retains piptei, while the other gifts have their own cessation verbs. Never fails is a possible idiomatic rendering of the first clause.
Verse 13:9
Greek–English Translation
For we know in part and prophesy in part,
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 13:10
Greek–English Translation
but when what is complete comes, what is partial will be brought to an end.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: To teleion is what is complete or perfect, grammatically neuter. No later event, completed book collection, or named person is inserted as its exclusive referent.
Verse 13:11
Greek–English Translation
When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, thought as an infant, reasoned as an infant. When I became a man, I brought the infant's ways to an end.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Brought to an end preserves the same katargeō vocabulary used for what is partial. The repeated infant language continues the maturity contrast.
Verse 13:12
Greek–English Translation
For now we see through a mirror, in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also was fully known.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Mirror and enigma preserve both images, rather than substituting a modern window. Fully known is passive; the sentence does not explicitly repeat the agent.
Verse 13:13
Greek–English Translation
And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Textual and Reception Notes