Genesis 16

New International Version

• 1. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;
• 2. so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said.
• 3. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.
• 4. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
• 5. Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."
• 6. "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
• 7. The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.
• 8. And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered.
• 9. Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her."
• 10. The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."
• 11. The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery.
• 12. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."
• 13. She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me."
• 14. That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
• 15. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.
• 16. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

New International Version