Chapter 4 Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth
nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors
until the time appointed of the father.
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the
world.
But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a
woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons.
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ.
How be it then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature
are no gods?
But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye
again to the weak and beggarly elements?
Whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.
Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are.
Ye have not injured me at all.
Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the
first.
And my temptation, which was in my flesh, ye despised not, nor rejected,
but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
Where is then the blessedness ye speak of?
For I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your
own eyes, and have given them to me.
Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
They zealously affect you, but not well.
Yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.
But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when
I am present with you.
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice, for I stand in
doubt of you.
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by
a free woman.
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman
was by promise.
Which things are an allegory?
For these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai, which
gendereth to bondage.
Which is Agar?
For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is
and is in bondage with her children.
But Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all.
For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not, break forth and cry,
thou that travailest not.
For the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
But as then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after
the Spirit.
Even so it is now.
Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture?
Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be
heir with the son of the free woman.
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.