20. I would like to be with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed because of you.
21. Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?
22. For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the freeborn woman.
23. The son of the slave woman was born naturally, the son of the freeborn through a promise.
24. Now this is an allegory. These women represent two covenants. One was from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar.
25. Hagar represents Sinai, a mountain in Arabia; it corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery along with her children.
26. But the Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she is our mother.
27. For it is written:“Rejoice, you barren one who bore no children;break forth and shout, you who were not in labor;for more numerous are the children of the deserted onethan of her who has a husband.”
28. Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of the promise.
29. But just as then the child of the flesh persecuted the child of the spirit, it is the same now.
30. But what does the scripture say?“Drive out the slave woman and her son!For the son of the slave woman shall not share the inheritance with the son”of the freeborn.
31. Therefore, brothers, we are children not of the slave woman but of the freeborn woman.