Wednesday 18 September 2024

31But earnestly desire the best gifts.Moreover, I show a most excellent way to you.

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.

2Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre.Sing praises to him with the harp of ten strings.3Sing to him a new song.Play skillfully with a shout of joy!

4For the Lord’s word is right.All his work is done in faithfulness.5He loves righteousness and justice.The earth is full of the loving kindness of the Lord.

12Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.22Let your loving kindness be on us, Lord,since we have hoped in you.

31“To what then should I compare the people of this generation?What are they like?32They are like children who sit in the marketplaceand call to one another,saying, ‘We piped to you,and you didn’t dance.We mourned, and you didn’t weep.’33For John the Baptizer came neither eating bread nor drinking wine,and you say, ‘He has a demon.’34The Son of Man has come eating and drinking,and you say, ‘Behold,a glutton and a drunkard,a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’35Wisdom is justified by all her children.”