1 What I mean is this: as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a servant, although he is master of everything,
2 but he is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by his father.
3 So it is with us: when we were children, we were held in bondage under the elements of the world.
4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 in order to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, who cries out, "Abba, Father!"
7 So you are a servant no longer, but a son; and if a son, also an heir of God through Christ.
8 But at that time, when you did not know God, you served those that by nature are not gods.
9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements, which you want to serve all over again?
10 You carefully keep days and months and seasons and years.
11 I am afraid for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.
12 Brothers, I beg you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong.
13 You know that it was on account of a weakness of the flesh that I first proclaimed the gospel to you;
14 and my trial that was in my flesh you did not despise or loathe, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.
15 What, then, became of your happiness? For I testify of you that, had it been possible, you would have dug out your eyes and given them to me.
16 So then, by speaking the truth to you, have I become your enemy?
17 These people zealously court you, but not for good; they want to shut you out, so that you will zealously court them.
18 It is good to be zealously courted in a good cause at all times, and not only when I am present with you,
19 my little children, over whom I am once more in birth pains until Christ is formed in you.
20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about 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 one by the free woman.
23 But the son of the slave woman was born according to the flesh, and the son of the free woman through the promise.
24 These things are an allegory; for these women are two covenants: one from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar.
25 For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, and she is in slavery with her children.
26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is the mother of us all.
27 For it is written, "Rejoice, you barren one who bears no child; break out and shout, you who have no birth pains; for the desolate one has many more children than she who has the husband."
28 And we, brothers, are children of promise, after the pattern of Isaac.
29 But just as at that time the one born according to the flesh persecuted the one born according to the Spirit, so it is now as well.
30 But what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the slave woman and her son; for the son of the slave woman shall by no means be heir with the son of the free woman."
31 So then, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.