It is difficult to say whether all things, which is repeated four times, refers in each case to the same things. It is necessary to examine each of these short clauses separately. In some languages it may be necessary to follow Good News Bible‘s example, where bears all things is rendered by “never gives up,” and the other instances of all things are reconstructed to “its … never fail” at the end of the verse.
Love bears all things: the Greek verb is related to the word for a roof. It may mean “supports or carries the universe,” but more probably Paul means here that love bears or endures all kinds of ill-treatment. Good News Bible expresses essentially the same meaning without the metaphor of “bearing.” Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente has “excuses everything.”
Revised Standard Version‘s repetition of all things tends in English to give a wrong meaning when combined with the verbs believes, hopes, and endures. For example, believes all things describes a naive person rather than one who has strong faith. Barrett claims that believes all things means “never loses faith.” One may also say “never stops believing.”
Hopes all things: the word hope as Paul uses it has a main element of “confidence.” So one can render this phrase as “is always confident.” Some languages may need to state the goal of “confidence”: “… confident in God.”
Endures all things: endures has a similar meaning to bears in the first sentence. That is the reason why Good News Bible structures the verse the way it does. The first bear is given a more general sense.
An alternative translation model for this verse is:
• Love enables us to endure everything; it enables us in every circumstance to keep on believing, to keep our confidence in God, and to remain patient no matter what happens to us.
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .