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1 Corinthians 13:4-5

哥林多前书 13:4-5

The Passage

Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn't envy. Love doesn't brag, is not proud, doesn't behave itself inappropriately, doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil.

In the other language

爱是恒久忍耐，又有恩慈；爱是不嫉妒，爱是不自夸，不张狂，不做害羞的事，不求自己的益处，不轻易发怒，不计算人的恶。

Theme

Love in action

Bring a question to this passage

Many readers arrive here from a real question. These are reflections for how this passage speaks to the questions people bring most often — not an answer about what will happen, but an invitation to sit with it slowly.

How do I face this season of pressure at work?

Love takes a recognizable shape here: patience, kindness, humility, and freedom from keeping a tally of wrongs. The passage does not offer workload advice, but it speaks directly to the ways pressure can affect your treatment of others. When you are stretched, envy may grow louder, irritation may arrive faster, and getting your own way may feel urgent. These words invite you to notice those movements without making them your guide. Patience does not require accepting every demand, and kindness can accompany a clear limit. You can attend to both your responsibilities and the person in front of you. Which quality of love feels most difficult to practice at work today?

Carry thisKindness can accompany a clear and honest limit.

Other passages for this questionGenesis 1:26-28 · Isaiah 41:10 · 2 Corinthians 10:2-6

I want to learn to love better in this relationship.

Love becomes recognizable here through ordinary conduct: patience, kindness, humility, and a willingness not to insist on your own way. These words give your desire to love better something concrete to attend to. You do not have to assess the whole relationship at once. You can notice one moment when you interrupt, compare, boast, or rehearse an old injury. The passage invites a different response without asking you to pretend that harm does not matter. Patience is not permission for mistreatment, and kindness can include an honest boundary. As you read slowly, which description of love touches the way you treat this person most directly?

Carry thisLove takes shape in patience, kindness, and honest humility.

Other passages for this questionGenesis 1:26-28 · Isaiah 41:10 · 2 Corinthians 10:2-6

What do I need to let go of in the coming weeks?

The habit of keeping score can weigh quietly on your relationships, even when you long to love well. This passage does not name what you need to release in the coming weeks, but it offers a way to notice what makes patience and kindness harder: comparison, pride, insistence on your own way, or the careful tally of another person's wrongs. You can bring whatever you recognize into God's presence without rushing to fix yourself, allowing room for honesty about your hurt as well as gentleness toward others. Love becomes more possible in your daily relationships when you loosen your grip on which resentment, comparison, or demand?

Carry thisLove leaves room for kindness without denying what is true.

Other passages for this questionGenesis 1:26-28 · Isaiah 41:10 · 2 Corinthians 10:2-6

How can I find stillness in a busy life?

Patience and kindness give love a shape you can recognize in an ordinary day. These words do not prescribe a practice of stillness, but they invite you to notice how you move among people when you are hurried. Love does not insist on its own way or keep an account of wrongs. Even with tasks unfinished, you can pause before replying, loosen your demand to be right, or listen without preparing your defense. That pause is not another standard of flawless behavior. It is a small space in which to consider what love asks of you. These words do not prescribe a practice of stillness. How much of your hurry might soften if you made room to listen without preparing your defense?

Carry thisA pause can make room for patience and kindness.

Other passages for this questionGenesis 1:26-28 · Isaiah 41:10 · 2 Corinthians 10:2-6

Have a different question?

Write what you are actually carrying right now, and Lectio will answer it with this passage — 1 Corinthians 13:4-5.

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1 Corinthians 13 — in context

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 dole out 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, 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.

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