Chapter 13 sits between two chapters on spiritual gifts. It is Paul's corrective to a church that ranked believers by their gifts. With a series of conditions, he imagines the highest spiritual achievements: speaking in the languages of men and angels, knowing all mysteries, faith to move mountains, giving away everything. Without love, the speaker is a clanging cymbal, nothing, gaining nothing.
Paul's portrait of love reads like a description of Christ and a mirror held up to Corinth. The Corinthians were envious, boastful, puffed up, and self-seeking, yet love is patient and kind, does not envy or boast, and is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, is not provoked, and keeps no account of wrongs. It rejoices with the truth and bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things.
Love's permanence sets it above every gift. Prophecies, languages, and knowledge belong to the present age and will cease when the perfect comes. Paul uses two images: a child growing into adulthood and seeing in a mirror, dimly (13:12). Now knowledge is partial, but then believers will know fully, even as they are fully known. Faith, hope, and love remain, and love is the greatest, because love will continue forever.