Galatians 4:21-31

International Standard Version

You are Children of a Free Woman

²¹ Tell me, those of you who want to live under the Law: Are you really listening to what the Law says? ²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. ²³ Now the slave woman’s son was conceived through human means, while the free woman’s son was conceived through divine^[a] promise. ²⁴ This is being said as an allegory, for these women represent two covenants. The one woman, Hagar, is from Mount Sinai, and her children are born into slavery. ²⁵ Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery along with her children. ²⁶ But the heavenly Jerusalem is the free woman, and she is our spiritual mother.^{[b] 27} For it is written,

²⁸ So you,^[d] brothers, are children of the promise, like Isaac. ²⁹ But just as then the son who was conceived according to the flesh persecuted the son who was conceived according to the Spirit, so it is now. ³⁰ But what does the Scripture say? “Drive out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman must never share the inheritance with the son of the free woman.”^{[e] 31} So then, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.