Part 4

004:006 And because you are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of His Son to enter your hearts and cry "Abba! our Father!"

004:007 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir also through God's own act.

004:008 But at one time, you Gentiles, having no knowledge of God, were slaves to gods which in reality do not exist.

004:009 Now, however, having come to know God--or rather to be known by Him-- how is it you are again turning back to weak and worthless rudimentary notions to which you are once more willing to be enslaved?

004:010 You scrupulously observe days and months, special seasons, and years.

004:011 I am alarmed about you, and am afraid that I have perhaps bestowed labour upon you to no purpose.

004:012 Brethren, become as I am, I beseech you; for I have also become like you. In no respect did you behave badly to me.

004:013 And you know that in those early days it was on account of bodily infirmity that I proclaimed the Good News to you,

004:014 and yet the bodily infirmity which was such a trial to you, you did not regard with contempt or loathing, but you received me as if I had been an angel of God or Christ Jesus Himself!

004:015 I ask you, then, what has become of your self-congratulations? For I bear you witness that had it been possible you would have torn out your own eyes and have given them to me.

004:016 Can it be that I have become your enemy through speaking the truth to you?

004:017 These men pay court to you, but not with honourable motives. They want to exclude you, so that you may pay court to them.

004:018 It is always an honourable thing to be courted in an honourable cause; always, and not only when I am with you, my children--

004:019 you for whom I am again, as it were, undergoing the pains of childbirth, until Christ is fully formed within you.

004:020 Would that I were with you and could change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

004:021 Tell me--you who want to continue to be subject to Law-- will you not listen to the Law?

004:022 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-girl and one by the free woman.

004:023 But we see that the child of the slave-girl was born in the common course of nature; but the child of the free woman in fulfilment of the promise.

004:024 All this is allegorical; for the women represent two Covenants. One has its origin on Mount Sinai, and bears children destined for slavery.

004:025 This is Hagar; for the name Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, which is in bondage together with her children.

004:026 But the Jerusalem which is above is free, and *she* is *our* mother.

004:027 For it is written, "Rejoice, thou barren woman that bearest not, break forth into a joyful cry, thou that dost not travail with child. For the desolate woman has many children-- more indeed than she who has the husband."

004:028 But you, brethren, like Isaac, are children born in fulfilment of a promise.

004:029 Yet just as, at that time, the child born in the common course of nature persecuted the one whose birth was due to the power of the Spirit, so it is now.

004:030 But what says the Scripture? "Send away the slave-girl and her son, for never shall the slave-girl's son share the inheritance with the son of the free woman."

004:031 Therefore, brethren, since we are not the children of a slave-girl, but of the free woman--

005:001 Christ having made us gloriously free--stand fast and do not again be hampered with the yoke of slavery.

005:002 Remember that it is I Paul who tell you that if you receive circumcision Christ will avail you nothing.