Genesis 16 - NIV Translation

(Gen 16:1 NIV) Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;

(Gen 16:2 NIV) so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

(Gen 16:3 NIV) So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.

(Gen 16:4 NIV) He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

(Gen 16:5 NIV) Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."

(Gen 16:6 NIV) "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

(Gen 16:7 NIV) The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.

(Gen 16:8 NIV) And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered.

(Gen 16:9 NIV) Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her."

(Gen 16:10 NIV) The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."

(Gen 16:11 NIV) The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery.

(Gen 16:12 NIV) He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."

(Gen 16:13 NIV) She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me."

(Gen 16:14 NIV) That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi ; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

(Gen 16:15 NIV) So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.

(Gen 16:16 NIV) Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.