24. This true story makes a picture for us. The two women are like the two agreements between God and his people. One agreement is the law that God made on Mount Sinai. The people who are under this agreement are like slaves. The mother named Hagar is like that agreement.
25. So Hagar is like Mount Sinai in Arabia. She is a picture of the earthly Jewish city of Jerusalem. This city is a slave, and all its people are slaves to the law.
26. But the heavenly Jerusalem that is above is like the free woman, who is our mother.
27. The Scriptures say, “Be happy, woman—you who cannot have children. Be glad you never gave birth. Shout and cry with joy! You never felt those labor pains. The woman who is alone will have more children than the woman who has a husband.” Isaiah 54:1
28. My brothers and sisters, you are children who were born because of God’s promise, just as Isaac was.
29. But the other son of Abraham, who was born in the normal way, caused trouble for the one who was born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same today.
30. But what do the Scriptures say? “Throw out the slave woman and her son! The son of the free woman will receive everything his father has, but the son of the slave woman will receive nothing.”
31. So, my brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman. We are children of the free woman.