Genesis 21
Open in the reader1Now He-Who-Is attended to Princess as He had said, and He-Who-Is did for Princess what He had promised.
2So Princess conceived and bore a son to Father-of-a-Multitude in his old age, at the very time God had promised.
3And Father-of-a-Multitude gave the name He-Laughs to the son Princess bore to him.
4When his son He-Laughs was eight days old, Father-of-a-Multitude circumcised him, as God had commanded him.
5Father-of-a-Multitude was a hundred years old when his son He-Laughs was born to him.
6Then Princess said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears of this will laugh with me.”
7She added, “Who would have told Father-of-a-Multitude that Princess would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8So the child grew and was weaned, and Father-of-a-Multitude held a great feast on the day He-Laughs was weaned.
9But Princess saw that the son whom Hagar the Two-Straits-One had borne to Father-of-a-Multitude was mocking her son,
10and she said to Father-of-a-Multitude, “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son He-Laughs!”
11Now this matter distressed Father-of-a-Multitude greatly because it concerned his son God-Hears.
12But God said to Father-of-a-Multitude, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Princess tells you, for through He-Laughs your offspring will be reckoned.
13But I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he is your offspring.”
14Early in the morning, Father-of-a-Multitude got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness Well-of-Oath Well-of-Oath.
15When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.
16Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.
17Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the messenger of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies.
18Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
19Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20And God was with the boy, and he grew up and settled in the wilderness and became a great archer.
21And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Place-of-Beauty, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Two-Straits.
22At that time My-Father-Is-King and Mouth-of-All the commander of his army said to Father-of-a-Multitude, “God is with you in all that you do.
23Now, therefore, swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or descendants. Show to me and to the country in which you reside the same kindness that I have shown to you.”
24And Father-of-a-Multitude replied, “I swear it.”
25But when Father-of-a-Multitude complained to My-Father-Is-King about a well that My-Father-Is-King’s servants had seized,
26My-Father-Is-King replied, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, so I have not heard about it until today.”
27So Father-of-a-Multitude brought sheep and cattle and gave them to My-Father-Is-King, and the two men made a covenant.
28Father-of-a-Multitude separated seven ewe lambs from the flock,
29and My-Father-Is-King asked him, “Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?”
30He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand as my witness that I dug this well.”
31So that place was called Well-of-Oath, because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.
32After they had made the covenant at Well-of-Oath, My-Father-Is-King and Mouth-of-All the commander of his army got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
33And Father-of-a-Multitude planted a tamarisk tree in Well-of-Oath, and there he called upon the name of He-Who-Is, the Eternal God.
34And Father-of-a-Multitude resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.