17. Those people are working hard to persuade you. But this is not good for you. They want to persuade you to turn against us. They want you to follow only them.
18. It is good for people to show interest in you, but only if their purpose is good. This is always true. It is true when I am with you and when I am away.
19. My little children, again I feel pain for you as a mother feels when she gives birth. I will feel this until you truly become like Christ.
20. I wish I could be with you now. Then maybe I could change the way I am talking to you. Now I do not know what to do about you.
21. Some of you people still want to be under the law of Moses. Tell me, do you know what the law says?
22. The Scriptures say that Abraham had two sons. The mother of one son was a slave woman. The mother of the other son was a free woman.
23. Abraham’s son from the slave woman was born in the normal human way. But the son from the free woman was born because of the promise God made to Abraham.
24. This makes a picture for us. The two women are like the two agreements between God and men. One agreement is the law that God made on Mount Sinai. The people who are under this agreement are like slaves. The mother named Hagar is like that agreement.
25. She is like Mount Sinai in Arabia and is a picture of the earthly Jewish city of Jerusalem. This city is a slave, and all its people are slaves to the law.
26. But the heavenly Jerusalem which is above is like the free woman. She is our mother.
27. It is written in the Scriptures:“Be happy, Jerusalem.You are like a woman who never gave birth to children.Start singing and shout for joy.You never felt the pain of giving birth to children.But you will have more childrenthan the woman who has a husband.” Isaiah 54:1
28. My brothers, you are God’s children because of his promise, as Isaac was then.
29. The son who was born in the normal way treated the other son badly. It is the same today.