< Genesis 16 >
1 And Sarai, Abram’s wife, has not borne to him, and she has a handmaid, an Egyptian, and her name [is] Hagar;
2 and Sarai says to Abram, “Now behold, YHWH has restrained me from bearing, please go in to my handmaid; perhaps I am built up from her”; and Abram listens to the voice of Sarai.
3 And Sarai, Abram’s wife, takes Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, at the end of the tenth year of Abram’s dwelling in the land of Canaan, and gives her to her husband Abram—to him for a wife,
4 and he goes in to Hagar, and she conceives, and she sees that she has conceived, and her mistress is lightly esteemed in her eyes.
5 And Sarai says to Abram, “My violence [is] for you; I have given my handmaid into your bosom, and she sees that she has conceived, and I am lightly esteemed in her eyes; YHWH judges between me and you.”
6 And Abram says to Sarai, “Behold, your handmaid [is] in your hand, do to her that which is good in your eyes”; and Sarai afflicted her, and she flees from her presence.
7 And the Messenger of YHWH finds her by the fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way [to] Shur,
8 and He says, “Hagar, Sarai’s handmaid, from where have you come, and to where do you go?” And she says, “From the presence of Sarai, my mistress, I am fleeing.”
9 And the Messenger of YHWH says to her, “Return to your mistress, and humble yourself under her hands”;
10 and the Messenger of YHWH says to her, “Multiplying I multiply your seed, and it is not numbered from multitude”;
11 and the Messenger of YHWH says to her, “Behold you [are] conceiving, and bearing a son, and have called his name Ishmael, for YHWH has listened to your affliction;
12 and he is a wild-donkey man, his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him—and before the face of all his brothers he dwells.”
13 And she calls the Name of YHWH who is speaking to her, “You [are], O God, my beholder”; for she said, “Even here have I looked behind my beholder?”
14 Therefore has one called the well, “The well of the Living One, my beholder”; behold, between Kadesh and Bered.
15 And Hagar bears a son to Abram; and Abram calls the name of his son, whom Hagar has borne, Ishmael;
16 and Abram [is] a son of eighty-six years in Hagar’s bearing Ishmael to Abram.
