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16:1  Sarai, Abram’s wife, was not able to have children. She owned an Egyptian slave named Hagar.
16:2  So Sarai said to Abram, “Yahweh has kept me from having children. Why don’t you sleep with my slave? Maybe I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed with Sarai.
16:3  After Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years, Abram’s wife Sarai took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.
16:4  He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to be disrespectful to Sarai, her owner.
16:5  So Sarai complained to Abram, “I’m being treated unfairly! And it’s your fault! I know that I gave my slave to you, but now that she’s pregnant, she’s being disrespectful to me. May Yahweh decide who is right—you or me.”
16:6  Abram answered Sarai, “Here, she’s your slave. Do what you like with her.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar so much that she ran away.
16:7  The Messenger of Yahweh found her by a spring in the desert, the spring on the way to Shur.
16:8  He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s slave, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She answered, “I’m running away from my owner Sarai.”
16:9  The Messenger of Yahweh said to her, “Go back to your owner, and place yourself under her authority.”
16:10  The Messenger of Yahweh also said to her, “I will give you many descendants. No one will be able to count them because there will be so many.”
16:11  Then the Messenger of Yahweh said to her, “You are pregnant, and you will give birth to a son. You will name him Ishmael [God Hears], because Yahweh has heard your cry of distress.
16:12  He will be as free and wild as an untamed donkey. He will fight with everyone, and everyone will fight with him. He will have conflicts with all his relatives.”
16:13  Hagar named Yahweh, who had been speaking to her, “You Are El Roi.” She said, “This is the place where I watched the one who watches over me.”
16:14  This is why the well is named Beer Lahai Roi [Well of the Living One Who Watches Over Me]. It is still there between Kadesh and Bered.
16:15  Hagar gave birth to Abram’s son. Abram named him Ishmael.
16:16  Abram was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.