Moffatt(i)
1 What I mean is this. As long as an heir is under age, there is no difference between him and a servant, though he is lord of all the property;
2 he is under guardians and trustees till the time fixed by his father.
3 So with us. When we were under age, we lived under the thraldom of the Elemental spirits of the world;
4 but when the time had fully expired, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,
5 to ransom those who were under the Law, that we might get our sonship.
6 It is because you are sons that God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying 'Abba! Father!'
7 So you are servant no longer but son, and as son you are also heir, all owing to God.
8 In those days, when you were ignorant of God, you were in servitude to gods who are really no gods at all;
9 but now that you know God — or rather, are known by God — how is it you are turning back again to the weakness and poverty of the Elemental spirits? Why do you want to be enslaved all over again by them?
10 You observe days and months and festal seasons and years!
11 Why, you make me afraid I may have spent my labour on you for nothing!
12 Do take my line, brothers, I beg of you — just as I once took yours. I have no complaint against you;
13 no, although it was because of an illness (you know) that I preached the gospel to you on my former visit,
14 and though my flesh was a trial to you, you did not scoff at me nor spurn me, you welcomed me like an angel of God, like Christ Jesus. You congratulated yourselves.
15 Now, what has become of all that? (I can bear witness that you would have torn out your very eyes, if you could, and given me them.)
16 Am I your enemy to-day, because I have been honest with you?
17 These men make much of you — yes, but for dishonest ends; they want to debar you from us, so that you may make much of them.
18 Now it is fine for you to be made much of honestly and all the time — not simply when I can be with you.
19 O my dear children, you with whom I am in travail over again till Christ be formed within you,
20 would that I could be with you at this moment, and alter my tone, for I am at my wits' end about you!
21 Tell me, you who are keen to be under the Law, will you not listen to the Law?
22 Surely it is written in the Law that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-woman and one by the free-woman;
23 but while the son of the slave-woman was born by the flesh, the son of the free-woman was born by the promise.
24 Now this is an allegory. The women are two covenants. One comes from mount Sinai, bearing children for servitude; that is Hagar,
25 for mount Sinai is away in Arabia. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for the latter is in servitude with her children.
26 But the Jerusalem on high is free, and she is 'our' mother.
27 For it is written, Rejoice, O thou barren who bearest not, break into joy, thou who travailest not; for the children of the desolate woman are far more than of the married.
28 Now you are the children of the Promise, brothers, like Isaac;
29 but just as in the old days the son born by the flesh persecuted the son born by the Spirit, so it is still to-day.
30 However, what does the scripture say? Put away the slave-woman and her son, for the son of the slave-woman shall not be heir along with the son of the free-woman.
31 Hence we are children of no slave-woman, my brothers, but of the free-woman,