Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee

Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. ²⁸God has set some in the assembly: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracle workers, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, and various kinds of languages. ²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all miracle workers? ³⁰Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with various languages? Do all interpret? ³¹But earnestly desire the best gifts. Moreover, I show a most excellent way to you.

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 give away 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, and 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.

“Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee stood and prayed by himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men: extortionists, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’ ¹³But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”