Old Post: "1 Corinthians 13"

Yeti Warlord's Note:  Originally posted 31 Dec 2006.  Nest of Wonders occasionally present the very best of my old blog for your reading enjoyment.  Today's is in honour of my wife and I celebrating our Hindu wedding -- it is my version of the famous description of Love that was read at our American wedding, 1 Corinthians 13.  Not a word has been altered.

I'm taking New Testament Greek next semester, and I thought I would get a taste for it by translating one of my (only) favourite passages, more or less literally, with an eye to subtext.  This is not meant to be especially poetic, but comments would be appreciated.

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If in the tongues of humans I speak and of the angels, but have not Love, I have become sounding brass or a clashing cymbal.  And if I have prophecy, and might know all mysteries and all wisdom, and if I have all the faith so that mountains be removed, but have not Love, I am nothing.  And if I give away all my possessions, and if I would give my body so that I will be burnt, but have not Love, I am profited nothing.

            Love is great-hearted, Love is kind, is not jealous, is not proud, is not arrogant, does not behave improperly, does not seek her own interests, is not irritable, does not account wrong, does not rejoice in injustice but rejoices with the truth.  She bears all in silence, trusts all, hopes all, remains behind all things.

            Love never kneels.  And if there are prophecies, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will stop; if there is wisdom, it will be done away with.  For in part we know and in part we prophesy.  And whenever wholeness should come, the partial will be done away with.  When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I accounted as a child.  When I became a man, I did away with the things of a child.  For now we see through a mirror in dimness, but then, face to face.  Now I know in part, but then I will know just even as I will be known.  And now abide Faith, Hope, Love—these three.  But greatest of these is Love.