014:001 Be eager in your pursuit of this Love, and be earnestly ambitious
for spiritual gifts, but let it be chiefly so in order
that you may prophesy.
014:002 For he who speaks in an unknown tongue is not speaking to men,
but to God; for no one understands him. Yet in the Spirit
he is speaking secret truths.
014:003 But he who prophesies speaks to men words of edification,
encouragement and comfort.
014:004 He who speaks in an unknown tongue does good to himself,
but he who prophesies does good to the Church.
014:005 I should be right glad were you all to speak in `tongues,' but yet more glad were you all to prophesy. And, in fact, the man who prophesies is superior to him who speaks in `tongues,' except when the latter can interpret in order that the Church may get a blessing.
014:006 But, brethren, as things are, if I come to you speaking in `tongues,'
what benefit shall I confer on you, if the utterance is neither
in the form of a revelation nor of additional knowledge nor
of prophecy nor of teaching?
014:007 Even inanimate things—flutes or harps, for instance—
when yielding a sound, if they make no distinction in the notes,
how shall the tune which is played on the flute or the
harp be known?
014:008 If the bugle—to take another example—gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?
014:009 And so with you; if with the living voice you fail to utter intelligible words, how will people know what you are saying? You will be talking to the winds.
014:010 There are, we will suppose, a great number of languages in the world, and no creature is without a language.