Read New International Version, 2011 Genesis 16 Bible Online

Genesis 16 - New International Version, 2011 bible

Genesis 16

¹Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar;

²so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

³So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.

⁴He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

⁵Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

⁶“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

⁷The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.

⁸And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

⁹Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”

¹⁰The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

¹¹The angel of the LORD also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, [65] for the LORD has heard of your misery.

¹²He 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 [66] all his brothers.”

¹³She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen [67] the One who sees me.”

¹⁴That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi [68]; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.

¹⁶Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.