The son and the spirit

4 Let me put it like this. As long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave—even if, in fact, he is master of everything! ² He is kept under guardians and stewards until the time set by his father.

³ Well, it’s like that with us. When we were children, we were kept in “slavery” under the “elements of the world.” ⁴ But when the fullness of time arrived, God sent out his son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ so that he might 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 our hearts, calling out “Abba, Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son! And, if you’re a son, you are an heir, through God.

The true God and the false gods

⁸ However, at that stage you didn’t know God, and so you were enslaved to beings that, in their proper nature, are not gods. ⁹ But now that you’ve come to know God—or, better, to be known by God—how can you turn back again to that weak and poverty-stricken line-up of elements that you want to serve all over again? ¹⁰ You are observing days, and months, and seasons, and years! ¹¹ I am afraid for you; perhaps my hard work with you is all going to be wasted.

Paul’s appeal to his children

¹² Become like me!—because I became like you, my dear family. This is my plea to you. You didn’t wrong me: ¹³ no, you know that it was through bodily weakness that I announced the gospel to you in the first place. ¹⁴ You didn’t despise or scorn me, even though my condition was quite a test for you, but you welcomed me as if I were God’s angel, as if I were the Messiah, Jesus! ¹⁵ What’s happened to the blessing you had then? Yes, I can testify that you would have torn out your eyes, if you’d been able to, and given them to me. ¹⁶ So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?

¹⁷ The other lot are eager for you, but it’s not in a good cause. They want to shut you out, so that you will then be eager for them. ¹⁸ Well, it’s always good to be eager in a good cause, and not only when I’m there with you. ¹⁹ My children—I seem to be in labor with you all over again, until the Messiah is fully formed in you! ²⁰ I wish I were there with you right now, and could change my tone of voice. I really am at a loss about you.

Abraham’s two sons

²¹ So, you want to live under the law, do you? All right, tell me this: are you prepared to hear what the law says? ²² For the Bible says that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-girl and one by the free woman. ²³ Now the child of the slave-girl was born according to the flesh, while the child of the free woman was born according to promise.

²⁴ Treat this as picture-language. These two women stand for two covenants: one comes from Mount Sinai, and gives birth to slave-children; that is Hagar. ²⁵ (Sinai, you see, is a mountain in Arabia, and it corresponds, in the picture, to the present Jerusalem, since she is in slavery with her children.) ²⁶ But the Jerusalem which is above is free—and she is our mother.

²⁷ For the Bible says,

²⁸ Now you, my family, are children of promise, in the line of Isaac. ²⁹ But things now are like they were then: the one who was born according to the flesh persecuted the one born according to the spirit. ³⁰ But what does the Bible say? “Throw out the slave-girl and her son! For the son of the slave-girl will not inherit with the son of the free.” ³¹ So, my family, we are not children of the slave-girl, but of the free.