²¹Those who want to be controlled by Moses’ laws should tell me something. Are you really listening to what Moses’ Teachings say? ²²Scripture says that Abraham had two sons, one by a woman who was a slave and the other by a free woman. ²³Now, the son of the slave woman was conceived in a natural way, but the son of the free woman was conceived through a promise ⸤made to Abraham⸥.

²⁴I’m going to use these historical events as an illustration. The women illustrate two arrangements.^cThe one woman, Hagar, is the arrangement made on Mount Sinai. Her children are born into slavery. ²⁵Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She is like Jerusalem today because she and her children are slaves. ²⁶But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. ²⁷Scripture says:

“Rejoice, women who cannot get pregnant,

who cannot give birth to any children!

Break into shouting, those who feel no pains of childbirth!

Because the deserted woman will have more children

than the woman who has a husband.”

²⁸Now you, brothers and sisters, are children of the promise like Isaac.

²⁹Furthermore, at that time the son who was conceived in a natural way persecuted the son conceived in a spiritual way. That’s exactly what’s happening now. ³⁰But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, because the son of the slave woman must never share the inheritance with the son of the free woman.” ³¹Brothers and sisters, we are not children of a slave woman but of the free woman.

5TH CHAPTER

Live in the Freedom That Christ Gives You

¹Christ has freed us so that we may enjoy the benefits of freedom. Therefore, be firm ⸤in this freedom⸥, and don’t become slaves again.

Read in Logos

Galatians 5:1: For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Footnotes

c 4:24 Or “covenants.”