One of the many blessings of my childhood is that Mrs. Hill, my Sunday School teacher for fourth grade, challenged us kids to memorize I Corinthians 13, which I did.   I’ve gotten rusty on it though, so I want to memorize it again.  The first time I did so was with The Living Bible translation.  This time I want to do so from the NASB (New American Standard Bible).

What version do you prefer to memorize it in?  Are you up for doing this with me?

I Corinthians 13

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.

And 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.

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

Love is patient; love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant; does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth:  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

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.  For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.  But when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child.  When I became an adult, I did away with childish things.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.

But now abide faith, hope, and love — these three.

But the greatest of these is love.