Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Hagar and Ishmael

16 Abram's wife Sarai had not been able to have any children. But she owned a young Egyptian slave woman named Hagar, ² and Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has not given me any children. Sleep with my slave, and if she has a child, it will be mine.”^[a] Abram agreed, ³ and Sarai gave him Hagar to be his wife. This happened after Abram had lived in the land of Canaan for ten years. ⁴ Later, when Hagar knew she was going to have a baby, she became proud and treated Sarai hatefully.

⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, “It's all your fault!^[b] I gave you my slave woman, but she has been hateful to me ever since she found out she was pregnant. You have done me wrong, and you will have to answer to the Lord for this.”

⁶ Abram said, “All right! She's your slave—do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai began treating Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away.

⁷ Hagar stopped to rest at a spring in the desert on the road to Shur. While she was there, the angel of the Lord came to her ⁸ and asked, “Hagar, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

She answered, “I'm running away from Sarai, my owner.”

⁹ The angel said, “Go back to Sarai and be her slave. ^10-11 I will give you a son, who will be called Ishmael,^[c] because I have heard your cry for help. And someday I will give you so many descendants that no one will be able to count them all. ¹² But your son will live far from his relatives; he will be like a wild donkey, fighting everyone, and everyone fighting him.”

¹³ Hagar thought, “Have I really seen God and lived to tell about it?”^[d] So from then on she called him, “The God Who Sees Me.”^{[e] 14} That's why people call the well between Kadesh and Bered, “The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.”^[f]

^15-16 (A) Abram was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to their son, and he named him Ishmael.

The Letter to Ephesus

2 This is what you must write to the angel of the church in Ephesus:

I am the one who holds the seven stars in my right hand, and I walk among the seven gold lampstands. Listen to what I say.

² I know everything you have done, including your hard work and how you have endured. I know you won't put up with anyone who is evil. When some people pretended to be apostles, you tested them and found out they were liars. ³ You have endured and gone through hard times because of me, yet you have not given up.

⁴ But I do have something against you! And it is this: You don't have as much love as you used to. ⁵ Think about where you have fallen from, and then turn back and do as you did at first. If you don't turn back, I will come and take away your lampstand. ⁶ But there is one thing you are doing right. You hate what the Nicolaitans^[a] are doing, and so do I.

^7 (A) If you have ears, listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. I will let everyone who wins the victory eat from the life-giving tree in God's wonderful garden.