Genesis 21:1-21

Living Bible

21 ^1-2 Then God did as he had promised, and Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a baby son in his old age, at the time God had said; ³ and Abraham named him Isaac (meaning “Laughter!”). ^4-5 Eight days after he was born, Abraham circumcised him, as God required. (Abraham was 100 years old at that time.)

⁶ And Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter! All who hear about this shall rejoice with me. ⁷ For who would have dreamed that I would ever have a baby? Yet I have given Abraham a child in his old age!”

⁸ Time went by and the child grew and was weaned; and Abraham gave a party to celebrate the happy occasion. ⁹ But when Sarah noticed Ishmael—the son of Abraham and the Egyptian girl Hagar—teasing^[a] Isaac, ¹⁰ she turned upon Abraham and demanded, “Get rid of that slave girl and her son. He is not going to share your property with my son. I won’t have it.”

¹¹ This upset Abraham very much, for after all, Ishmael too was his son.

¹² But God told Abraham, “Don’t be upset over the boy or your slave-girl wife; do as Sarah says, for Isaac is the son through whom my promise will be fulfilled. ¹³ And I will make a nation of the descendants of the slave girl’s son, too, because he also is yours.”

¹⁴ So Abraham got up early the next morning, prepared food for the journey, and strapped a canteen of water to Hagar’s shoulders and sent her away with their son. She walked out into the wilderness of Beersheba, wandering aimlessly.

¹⁵ When the water was gone she left the youth in the shade of a bush ¹⁶ and went off and sat down a hundred yards or so away. “I don’t want to watch him die,” she said, and burst into tears, sobbing wildly.

¹⁷ Then God heard the boy crying, and the Angel of God called to Hagar from the sky, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Don’t be afraid! For God has heard the lad’s cries as he is lying there. ¹⁸ Go and get him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.”

¹⁹ Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well; so she refilled the canteen and gave the lad a drink. ^20-21 And God blessed the boy and he grew up in the wilderness of Paran, and became an expert archer. And his mother arranged a marriage for him with a girl from Egypt.