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No longer slaves but heirs

¹Here is what I mean. While the heir is still a child, his position is no better than a slave’s, even though he is master of everything. ²Guardians and managers have charge of him until the date his father has set. ³In the same way we too, when we were children, were held as slaves under the elemental forces of the world.^{a 4}But when the time God had set was complete, God sent out his Son. He was born of a woman and born under the law, ⁵to redeem those who lived under the law, so that we might be adopted as children.^{b 6}And since you are children, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, and the Spirit cries, “Abba, Father!”^{c 7}So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if you are a child, then you are also an heir, made so by God.^de

Why turn back to slavery?

⁸In the past you did not know God, and you were slaves to beings that are not gods by nature. ⁹But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you go back to those weak and worthless elemental forces and want to serve them as slaves once more?^{f 10}You keep special days and months, seasons and years. ¹¹I am afraid for you. I fear that the work I did for you may have been wasted.

Paul pleads with the Galatians

¹²Be as I am, brothers and sisters, I beg you, since I made myself as you were. You did me no wrong. ¹³You know that I preached the gospel to you the first time because of a weakness of the flesh. ¹⁴And though my flesh was a trial to you, you did not scorn me or spit in disgust. No, you received me like an angel of God, like Christ Jesus himself.^{g 15}What has become, then, of the way you once counted yourselves blessed? I can vouch for you: you would have gouged out your own eyes and handed them to me if that had been possible. ¹⁶So is it the truth I tell you that has made me your enemy? ¹⁷These people pay you eager attention, but their motives are not good. They want to shut you out, so that you will pay eager attention to them.^{h 18}It is always good to be sought after for a good purpose, and not only when I am there with you. ¹⁹My children, I am suffering birth pains over you a second time, and I will until Christ is formed in you. ²⁰I would like to be there with you now and speak in another tone, for I do not know what to make of you.

Hagar and Sarah: two covenants

²¹You who want to be under the law, tell me: do you not hear what the law says? ²²Scripture says that Abraham had two sons: one was the son of the slave woman, the other the son of the free woman. ²³The slave woman’s son was born according to the flesh, but the free woman’s son was born through the promise. ²⁴These things can be read as an allegory. The two women are two covenants. One comes from Mount Sinai and bears children who will be slaves; this is Hagar. ²⁵Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia, and she matches the Jerusalem of the present time, since she is in slavery together with her children.^{i 26}The Jerusalem above, however, is free, and it is she who is our mother.^{j 27}For it is written: “Be glad, barren woman, you who have borne no child; break into a shout, you who have never been in labor. For the woman left alone has many children, more than the woman who has a husband.” ²⁸And you, brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, as Isaac was.^{k 29}In those days the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born according to the Spirit, and it is the same now. ³⁰But what does Scripture say? “Send away the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”^{l 31}So then, brothers and sisters, we are children not of a slave woman but of the free woman.