Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Sarai and Hagar

16 Abram's wife, Sarai, had not given birth to any children. She had an Egyptian servant. The servant's name was Hagar. ² Sarai said to Abram, ‘The Lord has not let me have any children. Go and sleep with my servant. Then if she gives birth, her children will be my family.’ Abram agreed to do this.^[a]

³ Abram had now been living in Canaan for ten years. Sarai gave her Egyptian servant, Hagar, to him. She became like another wife for Abram.

⁴ Abram had sex with Hagar and she became pregnant. When Hagar knew that she was pregnant, she no longer respected Sarai.

⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘It is because of you that Hagar is now insulting me. I gave her to you so that you could have sex with her. Now she is pregnant and she does not respect me. The Lord will decide who is right, you or me.’

⁶ Abram said to Sarai, ‘Hagar is your servant and you have authority over her. Do to her whatever you think is right.’ Then Sarai caused trouble for Hagar. So Hagar ran away from Sarai.

Abraham believed God

4 Abraham was the ancestor of all of us who are Jews. Think about what he discovered. ² God did not accept Abraham as right with him because Abraham had done good things. If God had done that, then Abraham would have been able to boast about himself. But he could not boast to God. ³ Remember what the Bible tells us. It says: ‘Abraham believed God. As a result, God accepted Abraham as right with him.’^[a]

⁴ When a person works to get money, it is right for him to receive his money. That money is not a gift. It is what that person ought to receive as a result of his work. ⁵ But someone may believe in God. He does not work to cause God to accept him. God accepts that person because of their faith. God says that people who have turned away from him are right with him, if they trust him. That is God's gift to them. ⁶ David also wrote about the same thing. He describes those people that God has accepted as right with himself. God has not accepted them because they have done good things, but as his gift to them. David tells us how happy people like that are. ⁷ David says:

⁹ God does this for all people, both Jews and Gentiles. All people can be really happy like this, when God accepts them. As we have said, Abraham believed God. As a result, God accepted Abraham as right with him. ¹⁰ They circumcised Abraham to show that he was a Jew. Think about the time when God accepted Abraham. Did it happen before they circumcised him, or after that? We know that it was before they circumcised him! ¹¹ Some time after that, God told Abraham that someone should circumcise him. That would be a mark on his body to show that God had accepted him. God had already accepted Abraham because Abraham believed in him. God did not accept Abraham because they had circumcised him as a Jewish man. This shows that Abraham is like a father to everyone that God has accepted. Like Abraham, God has accepted them because they have believed in him. It is not important that nobody has circumcised them. ¹² But Abraham is also like the father of all Jews who believe in God. Someone has circumcised those Jews, but they have copied Abraham's example. They have believed in God, as Abraham believed before anyone had circumcised him.^[c]