Galatians 4

21st Century King James Version

4 Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth in nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all.

² But he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father.

³ Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world.

⁴ But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

⁶ And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.”

⁷ Therefore thou art no more a servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

⁸ However that be, then when ye knew not God, ye did service unto those which by nature are not gods.

⁹ But now after ye have known God, or rather are known by God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements unto which ye desire again to be in bondage?

¹⁰ Ye observe days and months and times and years.

¹¹ I am afraid for you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.

¹² Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. Ye have not injured me at all.

¹³ Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the Gospel unto you at the first.

¹⁴ And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected, but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ Where is then the blessedness ye spoke of? For I bear you record that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes and have given them to me.

¹⁶ Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?

¹⁷ They zealously seek after you, but for no good; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might seek after them.

¹⁸ But it is good to be zealously sought after, always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.

¹⁹ My little children, over whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

²⁰ I desire to be present with you now and to change my tone; for I stand in doubt of you.

²¹ Tell me, ye who desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.

²³ But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, but he of the freewoman was by promise.

²⁴ These things are an allegory, for these are the two covenants: The one is from Mount Sinai, which engendereth bondage; this is Hagar.

²⁵ For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to Jerusalem as it is now, and is in bondage with her children.

²⁶ But the Jerusalem which is above is free, and is the mother of us all.

²⁷ For it is written: “Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she who hath a husband.”

²⁸ Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

²⁹ But as then, he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now.

³⁰ Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.”

³¹ So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.