17. They are so concerned about you, though not with good intentions. Rather, they want to shut you out so that you would run after them.
18. However, it’s always good to have people concerned about you with good intentions, and not just when I’m there with you.
19. My little children, I’m going through labor pains again until Christ is formed in you.
20. But I wish I could be with you now and change how I sound, because I’m at a loss about you.
21. Tell me—those of you who want to be under the Law—don’t you listen to the Law?
22. It’s written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman.
23. The son by the slave woman was conceived the normal way, but the son by the free woman was conceived through a promise.
24. These things are an allegory: the women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to slave children; this is Hagar.
25. Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and she corresponds to the present-day Jerusalem, because the city is in slavery with her children.