Traditional: Collected Lyrics
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Public-domain lyrics

The Greatness of Love

Traditional

“The Greatness of Love” as printed in The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920).

Traditional: Collected Lyrics Text 401 1920 · historical text
Public domainHymnSacred song
Complete public-domain lyrics

This text comes from The Army and Navy Hymnal, a historical songbook transcribed on Wikisource and reproduced from the pinned revision linked below.

Verse 1

BELOVED, let us love one another: for love is of God

And every one that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God.

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Herein was the love of God manifested in us,

That God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us,

And sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No man hath beheld God at any time:

If we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us:

God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar:

For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen.

And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.

Verse 2

IF I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love,

I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.

And if 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 have not love, I am nothing.

And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,

Verse 3

And if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil;

Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done a way;

Whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child:

Now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face:

Now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.

But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Credits

Written by Traditional

Traditional words. Historical text published in The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920); public domain. No claim to a modern recording or arrangement.

Source & text edition

The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), “The Greatness of Love”

The 1920 published edition is in the public domain in the United States (pre-1931 publication). Entries whose credited author died more than 70 years ago are also in the public domain in life-plus-70 jurisdictions; traditional and anonymous entries are public domain. Pages whose scan quality is below the proofread threshold are held for review.

How to read this historical text and its source

Read the source on Wikisource

View copyright evidence · Transcription terms (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Retrieved 2026-10-26. Line spacing and section labels are adapted for reading. The displayed text follows the linked edition. Editorial notes and abstract artwork are by 52lyrics.
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