¹⁹ My dear children,^(A) for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,^{(B) 20} how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!

Hagar and Sarah

²¹ Tell me, you who want to be under the law,^(C) are you not aware of what the law says? ²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman^(D) and the other by the free woman.^{(E) 23} His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh,^(F) but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.^(G)

²⁴ These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. ²⁵ Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. ²⁶ But the Jerusalem that is above^(H) is free, and she is our mother. ²⁷ For it is written:

²⁸ Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise.^{(J) 29} At that time the son born according to the flesh^(K) persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit.^(L) It is the same now. ³⁰ But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”^{[b](M) 31} Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman,^(N) but of the free woman.^(O)

Freedom in Christ

5 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.^(P) Stand firm,^(Q) then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.^(R)

Released From the Law, Bound to Christ

7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters^(A)—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? ² For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him.^{(B) 3} So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress.^(C) But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

⁴ So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law^(D) through the body of Christ,^(E) that you might belong to another,^(F) to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. ⁵ For when we were in the realm of the flesh,^[a](G) the sinful passions aroused by the law^(H) were at work in us,^(I) so that we bore fruit for death.^{(J) 6} But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law^(K) so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.^(L)