Genesis 16

Abram and Hagar

1Sarai, Abram’s wife, was not able to have children. She owned an Egyptian slave named Hagar. 2So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Why don’t you sleep with my slave? Maybe I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed with Sarai.

3After Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years, Abram’s wife Sarai took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. 4He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to be disrespectful to Sarai, her owner.

5So Sarai complained to Abram, “I’m being treated unfairly! And it’s your fault! I know that I gave my slave to you, but now that she’s pregnant, she’s being disrespectful to me. May the Lord decide who is right—you or me.”

6Abram answered Sarai, “Here, she’s your slave. Do what you like with her.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar so much that she ran away.

7The Messenger of the Lord found her by a spring in the desert, the spring on the way to Shur. 8He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s slave, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

She answered, “I’m running away from my owner Sarai.” 9The Messenger of the Lord said to her, “Go back to your owner, and place yourself under her authority.” 10The Messenger of the Lord also said to her, “I will give you many descendants. No one will be able to count them because there will be so many.” 11Then the Messenger of the Lord said to her,

“You are pregnant,

and you will give birth to a son.

You will name him Ishmael [God Hears],

because the Lord has heard your cry of distress.

12He will be as free and wild as an untamed donkey.

He will fight with everyone, and everyone will fight with him.

He will have conflicts with all his relatives.”

13Hagar named the Lord, who had been speaking to her, “You Are the God Who Watches Over Me.” She said, “This is the place where I watched ⌞the one⌟ who watches over me.” 14This is why the well is named Beer Lahai Roi [Well of the Living One Who Watches Over Me]. It is still there between Kadesh and Bered.

15Hagar gave birth to Abram’s son. Abram named him Ishmael. 16Abram was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.

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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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