Genesis 16

Hagar and Ishmael

16Now Sarai,^k Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.^l But she had an Egyptian slave^m named Hagar;^{n 2}so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children.^o Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”^p

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. ³So after Abram had been living in Canaan^q ten years,^r Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. ⁴He slept with Hagar,^s and she conceived.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.^{t 5}Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”^u

⁶“Your slave is in your hands,^v” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated^w Hagar; so she fled from her.

⁷The angel of the Lord^x found Hagar near a spring^y in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.^{z 8}And he said, “Hagar,^a slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”^b

“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

⁹Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”^c

¹¹The angel of the Lord^d also said to her:

“You are now pregnant

and you will give birth to a son.^e

You shall name him^f Ishmael,^ag

for the Lord has heard of your misery.^h

¹²He will be a wild donkeyⁱ of a man;

his hand will be against everyone

and everyone’s hand against him,

and he will live in hostility

toward^b all his brothers.^j”

¹³She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,^k” for she said, “I have now seen^c the One who sees me.”^{l 14}That is why the well^m was called Beer Lahai Roi^d;ⁿ it is still there, between Kadesh^o and Bered.

¹⁵So Hagar^p bore Abram a son,^q and Abram gave the name Ishmael^r to the son she had borne. ¹⁶Abram was eighty-six years old^s when Hagar bore him Ishmael.