Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
41 Lord, show me your love.
Save me as you have promised.
42 Then I will have an answer for people who insult me.
I trust what you say.
43 Never keep me from speaking your truth.
I depend on your fair laws.
44 I will obey your teachings
forever and ever.
45 So I will live in freedom
because I want to follow your orders.
46 I will discuss your rules with kings.
And I will not be ashamed.
47 I enjoy obeying your commands.
I love them.
48 I praise your commands, which I love.
And I think about your demands.
Hagar and Ishmael
16 Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children. She had a slave girl from Egypt named Hagar. 2 Sarai said to Abram, “Look, the Lord has not allowed me to have children. So have physical relations with my slave girl. If she has a child, maybe I can have my own family through her.”
Abram did what Sarai said. 3 This was after Abram lived ten years in Canaan. And Sarai gave Hagar to her husband Abram. (Hagar was her slave girl from Egypt.)
4 Abram had physical relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress Sarai badly. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is your fault. I gave my slave girl to you. And when she became pregnant, she began to treat me badly. Let the Lord decide who is right—you or me.”
6 But Abram said to Sarai, “You are Hagar’s mistress. Do anything you want to her.” Then Sarai was hard on Hagar, and Hagar ran away.
7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the desert. The spring was by the road to Shur. 8 The angel said, “Hagar, you are Sarai’s slave girl. Where have you come from? Where are you going?”
Hagar answered, “I am running from my mistress Sarai.”
9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Go home to your mistress and obey her.” 10 The angel of the Lord also said, “I will give you so many descendants they cannot be counted.”
11 The angel also said to her,
“You are now pregnant,
and you will have a son.
You will name him Ishmael,[a]
because the Lord has heard your cries.
12 Ishmael will be like a wild donkey.
He will be against everyone.
And everyone will be against him.
He will attack all his brothers.”
13 The slave girl gave a name to the Lord who spoke to her. She said to him, “You are ‘God who sees me.’” This is because she said to herself, “Have I really seen God who sees me?” 14 So the well there was called Beer Lahai Roi.[b] It is between Kadesh and Bered.
15 Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram. And Abram named him Ishmael.
Warning About Non-Christians
14 You are not the same as those who do not believe. So do not join yourselves to them. Good and bad do not belong together. Light and darkness cannot share together. 15 How can Christ and Belial, the devil, have any agreement? What can a believer have together with a non-believer? 16 The temple of God cannot have any agreement with idols. And we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live with them and walk with them. And I will be their God. And they will be my people.”[a]
17 “Leave those people,
and make yourselves pure, says the Lord.
Touch nothing that is unclean,
and I will accept you.” Isaiah 52:11; Ezekiel 20:34, 41
18 “I will be your father,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord All-Powerful.” 2 Samuel 7:14; 7:8
7 Dear friends, we have these promises from God. So we should make ourselves pure—free from anything that makes body or soul unclean. We should try to become perfect in the way we live, because we respect God.
Paul’s Joy
2 Open your hearts to us. We have not done wrong to anyone. We have not ruined the faith of any person, and we have cheated no one.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.