Read the Bible

¹ And I say, now as much time as the heir is a child, he differs nothing from a servant, [though] being lord of all,² but is under tutors and stewards until the time appointed of the father,³ so we also, when we were children, were in servitude under the elements of the world,⁴ and when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, come of a woman, come under law,⁵ that He may redeem those under law, that we may receive the adoption as sons;⁶ and because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"⁷ So that you are no longer a servant, but a son, and if a son, also an heir of God through Christ.

⁸ But then, indeed, having not known God, you were in servitude to those [that are] not by nature gods,⁹ and now, having known God—and rather being known by God—how [do] you turn again to the weak and poor elements to which you desire anew to be in servitude?¹⁰ You observe days, and months, and times, and years!¹¹ I am afraid for you, lest I labored in vain for you.

¹² I implore you, brothers, become as I [am]—because I also [am] as you; you did not hurt me;¹³ and you have known that through weakness of the flesh I proclaimed good news to you at the first,¹⁴ and you did not despise nor reject my trial that [is] in my flesh, but you received me as a messenger of God—as Christ Jesus;¹⁵ what then was your blessedness? For I testify to you, that if possible, having plucked out your eyes, you would have given [them] to me;¹⁶ so have I become your enemy, being true to you?

¹⁷ They are zealous for you—[yet] not well, but they wish to shut us out, that you may be zealous for them;¹⁸ and [it is] good to be zealously regarded, in what is good, at all times, and not only in my being present with you;

¹⁹ my little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ may be formed in you,²⁰ indeed I was wishing to be present with you now, and to change my voice, because I am in doubt about you.

²¹ Tell me, you who are willing to be under law, do you not hear the Law?²² For it has been written that Abraham had two sons, one by the maidservant and one by the free [woman],²³ but he who [is] of the maidservant has been according to flesh, but he who [is] of the free [woman], through the promise,²⁴ which things are allegorized, for these are the two covenants: one, indeed, from Mount Sinai, bringing forth to servitude, which is Hagar;²⁵ for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the Jerusalem that now [is], and is in servitude with her children,²⁶ and the Jerusalem above is the free [woman], which is mother of us all,²⁷ for it has been written: "Rejoice, O barren, who is not bearing; break forth and cry, you who are not travailing, because many [are] the children of the desolate—more than of her having the husband."²⁸ And we, brothers, as Isaac, are children of promise,²⁹ but as he then who was born according to the flesh persecuted him [born] according to the Spirit, so also now;³⁰ but what does the Writing say? "Cast forth the maidservant and her son, for the son of the maidservant may not be heir with the son of the free [woman]";³¹ then, brothers, we are not a maidservant's children, but the free [woman's].