16:1 | Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; |
16:2 | so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. |
16:3 | So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. |
16:4 | He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. |
16:5 | Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me." |
16:6 | "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. |
16:7 | The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. |
16:8 | And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered. |
16:9 | Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." |
16:10 | The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." |
16:11 | The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery. |
16:12 | He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." |
16:13 | She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." |
16:14 | That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. |
16:15 | So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. |
16:16 | Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. |
| |