And I said, Not so, O Lord God! They say to me, Is not this that is spoken a parable?

I will go after the Lord: He shall utter [His voice] as a lion. For He shall roar, and the children of the waters shall be amazed.

so that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: "I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things having been hidden from the foundation of the world."

Now all these things happened to those [people] as examples, and they were written for our instruction, to whom the ends of the ages have come.

considering that even from the dead, God [was] able to raise [him up], from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

for Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, and is in slavery with her children--

And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."

Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.

and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they were drinking from that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.

Brothers, I speak in human fashion: A covenant is of a man, yet having been confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it.

And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, does not annul the covenant previously confirmed to Christ by God, so that it make the promise of no effect.

Why then the law? It was added on account of transgressions, until the Seed should come to whom it had been promised; and it was commanded through angels by the hand of a mediator.

Therefore, [is] the law against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given which was able to give life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.

by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.

But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises.

For finding fault [with] them, He says: "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

For this is the covenant which I shall covenant with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind, and I shall inscribe them upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I shall by no means remember anymore."

And on account of this He is the Mediator of the new covenant, so that, since a death has occurred for redemption of the transgressions at the time of the first covenant, that those having been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

For a testament is valid over dead [people], since it is never valid when the [one] making the testament lives.

For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses according to law to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,

And likewise he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the service with the blood.

Therefore it [was] necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens to be continually purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves by better sacrifices than these.

But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before,

and their sins and their lawless deeds I shall by no means remember any longer."

and to Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than the [blood] of Abel.

Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the everlasting covenant,

Stand fast therefore in the freedom in which Christ has made us free, and do not be loaded down again with a yoke of bondage.

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."

So Sarai, Abram's wife, having taken Hagar the Egyptian her handmaid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, gave her to Abram her husband as a wife to him.

And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived, and saw that she was with child, and her mistress was dishonored before her.

And the Angel of the Lord said to her, Hagar, Sarai's maid, from where do you come, and where are you going? And she said, I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sarai.

And Hagar bore a son to Abram; and Abram called the name of his son which Hagar bore to him, Ishmael.

And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

And Sarah, having seen the son of Hagar the Egyptian, who was born to Abraham, sporting with Isaac her son,

But the word appeared very distressing before Abraham concerning his son.

And moreover, I will make the son of this bondwoman a great nation, because he is your seed.

And these are the generations of Ishmael the son of Abraham, whom Hagar the Egyptian, the handmaid of Sarah, bore to Abraham.