GENESIS 16 (NIV)
- Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar,
- so she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said.
- So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.
- He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
- Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me."
- "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
- The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.
- And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my mistress Saria," she answered.
- Then the angel of the Lord told her, "Go back toyour mistress and submit to her."
- The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."
- The angel of the Lord also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery.
- He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."
- She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me."
- That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
- So Hagar born Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.
- Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
(U 479) From the depths, O Lord, I cry; Hear me When I pray to Thess. Mighty, Helper, ever nigh, Now my sure salvation be. Here before Thy throne I plead; Grant me grace in this my need!