Genesis 16

Sarai and Hagar

1Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not borne him a child, but she had an Egyptian slave woman whose name was Hagar. 2So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please have relations with my slave woman; perhaps I will #16:2 Lit be built from herobtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3And so after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave woman, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife. 4Then he had relations with Hagar, and she conceived; and when Hagar became aware that she had conceived, her mistress was insignificant in her sight. 5So Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I put my slave woman into your #16:5 Lit breastarms, but when she saw that she had conceived, I was insignificant in her #16:5 Lit eyessight. May the Lord judge between #16:5 Lit me and youyou and me.” 6But Abram said to Sarai, “Look, your slave woman is in your #16:6 Lit handpower; do to her what is good in your #16:6 Lit eyessight.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence.

7Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. 8He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s slave woman, from where have you come, and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” 9So the angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit #16:9 Lit under her handsto her authority.” 10The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will greatly multiply your #16:10 Lit seeddescendants so that #16:10 Lit they shall not be counted for multitudethey will be too many to count.” 11The angel of the Lord said to her further,

“Behold, you are pregnant,

And you will give birth to a son;

And you shall name him #16:11 I.e., God hearsIshmael,

Because the Lord has heard your affliction.

12“But he will be a wild donkey of a man;

His hand will be against everyone,

And everyone’s hand will be against him;

And he will live #16:12 Lit before the face of; or oppositein defiance of all his brothers.”

13Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “#16:13 Or You, God, see meYou are #16:13 Heb Elroia God who sees me”; for she said, “Have I even seen Him here and lived after #16:13 Lit His seeing meHe saw me?” 14Therefore the well was called #16:14 I.e., the well of the living one who sees meBeer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.

15So Hagar bore a son to Abram; and Abram named his son, to whom Hagar gave birth, Ishmael. 16Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to #16:16 Lit Abramhim.

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Genesis 16

The story about Hagar and Ishmael

1-3Abram and Sarai lived in that Canaan country, and after they were there for 10 years, they still had no kids. Sarai had a woman from Egypt working for her, called Hagar. She was Sarai’s slave. That means Sarai owned Hagar, and Hagar had to do everything that Sarai told her to do.

Sarai was sad because she had no kids, but she got an idea about how to get a baby for herself. So she said to Abram, “God has stopped me from having my own kids. But listen. I want you to sleep with Hagar, like she is your wife. You see, she belongs to me, so if she has a baby, that baby will really belong to me.” So Abram did that, just like Sarai said. 4He slept with Hagar like she was his wife.

Then Hagar found out that she was going to have a baby, so she started rubbishing Sarai all the time, because Sarai didn’t have any kids. 5So Sarai said to Abram, “I blame you for this trouble. I gave Hagar to you, and now she is going to have a baby, and she is rubbishing me all the time. I reckon God knows that I am right, and you are wrong.”

6But Abram said to Sarai, “Hagar belongs to you. You are her boss, so do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai started to treat Hagar in a really bad way. So Hagar left Abram and Sarai’s camp and ran away.

7Hagar started walking through the desert, along the road that went to a town called Shur, near Egypt. She sat down next to a water-hole there in the desert. God’s angel messenger went to her there. 8He said, “Hagar, you belong to Sarai, so why are you sitting out here in the desert? Where are you going?”

Hagar said, “I’m running away from my boss, Sarai. She is too hard on me.”

9God’s angel messenger said to her, “Don’t do that. Go back to your boss, and do what she says.” 10And the angel also said, “God is going to give you a really big family. You will have a son, and later on lots of people will be born into his family, and they will be a real big family, so that nobody will be able to count all those people.” 11The angel said, “You are going to have a baby boy, and you will name him Ishmael, because that name means God listens. You see, God listened to you. He heard about your trouble, and he will help you. 12And Ishmael, your son, he will live like a wild donkey. He will go anywhere he wants to, and he will fight against everybody, and everybody will fight against him. He will not live close to his relatives.”

13Then Hagar said to herself, “I have seen the God that sees me, and he looks after me.” So she gave God a name, she called him the God that sees me. 14So that’s why people call that water-hole the water-hole that belongs to the one that is alive and sees me. That water-hole is between a place called Kadesh and a place called Bered.

15Soon after that, Hagar had a baby boy, and Abram named him Ishmael.#Galatians 4:22 16Abram was 86 years old at the time when Ishmael was born.

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