The Greatest of These is Love
I don't know if St. Paul qualifies as a poet, but his description of Love in his first letter to the Corinthians is among the most beautiful ever written.
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The Greatest of These is Love
‘Though my gifts may be great or small If I don’t have love, I’ve nothing at all They’re so many gifts that come from above And the greatest of these is love Love is ever patient, ever kind Jealousy is never on Love's mind Love is never forceful never loud Love is never boastful never proud Chorus And when all that there is is in the past There are just three gifts that will last There is faith, there is hope and there is love And the greatest of these is love Love does not demand its own way Love rejoices when truth wins the day If you love someone you don’t count the cost Though all may appear to be lost Chorus Bridge When I was a child I talked like a child Now I’ve left my childish ways behind And though I no longer think like a child There are oh so many ways I don’t understand But someday I will see his face And I’ll understand the way he understands There is faith, there is hope and there is love And the greatest of these is love Chorus |
1 Corinthians 13
New International Bible 1If I speak in the tonguesa of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,b but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Recording Notes
Recorded at Contact Studios, Tallaght, Dublin 24. Vocalist and Guitarist Tony Bardon. Backing Vocalist Mary Cleary. Recording Engineer and Instrumentalist Gerry Horan |