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This is still a very early look into the unfinished text of the Open English Translation of the Bible. Please double-check the text in advance before using in public.
4 But as long as the heir is underage, he’s no wealthier than a slave (even though he’ll become the master) 2 but he is under guardians and managers until he reaches the age that his father specified. 3 So it is with us—when we were infants we were enslaved by the principles of this world, 4 but at the appointed time, God sent his son down to be born from a woman and to live under Moses’ law 5 [ref]so that he could buy back those enslaved under the law and they could now be adopted as children with their inheritance.
6 So because you are now children, God sent his son’s spirit down into our hearts as we call out, ‘Father, father.’ 7 Now you are no longer slaves but children with full rights, and as children, heirs of God’s promise.
4:8 Paul’s concerns about their faith
8 When you didn’t know God, you served others who are not really gods at all. 9 But now that you do know God, or rather than God now knows you, why would you turn back again to useless and inferior beliefs and to serve them all over again? 10 You all observe special holidays and certain months and seasons and years. 11 I worry that maybe I’ve wasted my time helping you all.
12 I implore you all to become like me, brothers and sisters, because I’m also just like you. You haven’t wronged me in any way 13 but you know that it was a result of my fleshly weakness that I originally preached the good message to you.[fn] 14 Yet you didn’t mock or despise me for this trial of my flesh, but rather all of you received me as God’s messenger like you might have received the messiah Yeshua himself. 15 So where are your generous attitudes now? I know that back then, you would have almost dug your own eyes out to give them to me. 16 Have I now become your enemy just because I told you all the truth?
17 Those others have worked hard to try to win you over but not for good reasons—they want to cut you off so that you’ll be enthusiastic about them. 18 It’s good to be enthusiastic about things that are always good, and not only at the times when I’m with you all. 19 My dear ones who I’m again labouring with in childbirth until the messiah becomes part of you, 20 I wanted to be there with you all now and to speak quite differently than this because I’m puzzled about you.
4:21 The free line and the slaves
21 Are you all who are under the law, telling me that you’re not even hearing what the law is? 22 It’s written in the scriptures[ref] that Abraham had two sons: one son of the slave girl Hagar, and one from the free woman. 23 The son of the slave girl was born from human actions, but in contrast, the son of the free woman was a result of God’s promise. 24 So if we use this as an illustration, there are two agreements: one from Mt. Sinai which relates to Hagar and give birth to enslaved people. 25 Hagar’s Mt. Sinai is in Arabia and corresponds to the present earthly Yerusalem in slavery along with her children. 26 However the heavenly Yerusalem which is our mother is free 27 because it’s been written in the scriptures:[ref]
‘Be glad barren woman,
you who have never born a child.
Be bold and shout,
you who have never been in labour,
because the lonely woman now has many children,
even more than the woman with a husband.’
28 And all of you, brothers and sisters, are children of the promise like Isaac, 29 but back then the one born from human actions persecuted[ref] the one born from the spirit, and so too it continues now. 30 But what do the scriptures say? ‘Send away the slave girl and her son because the son of the slave girl won’t be getting the inheritance alongside the son of the free woman.’[ref] 31 So, brothers and sisters, we’re not descendants of the slave girl, but of the free woman.
4:13 Scholars are unclear whether this might mean something like ill health, poor eyesight (see v15), or even a moral weakness, so we’ve left it as ambiguous in the translation as it is in the original.