Genesis 16
Hagar and Ishmael
¹ Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar.
² So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
³ So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.
⁴ And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.1
⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
⁶ “Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.
⁷ Now the angel 2 of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.
⁸ “Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.
⁹ So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”
¹⁰ Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”
¹¹ The angel of the LORD proceeded: “Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son. And you shall name him Ishmael,3 for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.
¹² He will be a wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”
¹³ So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,4” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”
¹⁴ Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi.5 It is located between Kadesh and Bered.
¹⁵ And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.
¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.