12. Become as I am, because I also became as you are, Achim B'Moshiach. I implore you. You did me no wrong.
13. And you know that it was due to chulshat habasar (weakness of the flesh, sickness) that I first preached the Besuras HaGeulah to you,
14. and your nisayon (trial) in my basar you did not despise nor did you loathe, but as a malach Hashem you received me, as Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua himself.
15. Where then is your birkat Shomayim? For I testify to you that if possible, having torn out your eynayeem (eyes), you would have made a mattanah (gift) of them to me.
16. So, then, have I become your oyev (enemy) by telling you HaEmes?
17. They (the mohalim haGoyim) are zealously courting you, but not in a good way; rather, they desire to cut you off and shut you out, in order that you may be zealous for them.
18. Now it is tov ma'od to be zealous in a good thing all the time, and not only during my presence with you.
19. My yeladim, for whom again I suffer chevlei leydah (birth pains) until Moshiach is formed in you,
20. Would that I were present with you just now and could change my tone, because I am baffled by you.
21. Tell me, you Goyim who wish to be under the Torah, do you not possess "shema" hearing of the Torah?
22. For the Torah says that Avraham Avinu had shnei banim (two sons), one of shifchah (the slave woman) and one of the gevirah.
23. But the one of the slave woman has been born according to the basar, and the one of the free woman has been born through the havtachah (promise).
24. Now these things can be taken derech mashal (figuratively); for these are two beritot (covenants, see 3:17), one from Mount Sinai bearing banim for avdut (slavery, bondage): this is Hagar.
25. Now, Hagar is the Mount Sinai in Arabia; and corresponds to the Yerushalayim of the present, for she is in avdut with her banim.