Genesis 16 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, hadn't been able to have children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar.

So Sarai said to Abram, "Look, Yahweh has kept me from having children. Sleep with my servant — maybe I can build a family through her." And Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

So after Abram had been living in the land of Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian servant Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.

He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. But when she realized she was pregnant, she started looking down on her mistress.

Then Sarai said to Abram, "This is your fault! I put my servant in your arms, and now that she's pregnant, she looks down on me. Let Yahweh judge between you and me!"

Abram told Sarai, "Look, your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you think is best." So Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away.

The angel of Yahweh found her by a spring of water in the wilderness — the spring on the road to Shur.

He said, "Hagar, Sarai's servant — where have you come from, and where are you going?" She said, "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai."

The angel of Yahweh told her, "Go back to your mistress and accept her authority over you."

Then the angel of Yahweh told her, "I will give you so many descendants that they'll be too many to count."

The angel of Yahweh also told her, "You are pregnant and will have a son. Name him Ishmael — because Yahweh has heard your cry of pain."

He'll be a wild donkey of a man — his hand against everyone, everyone's hand against him — and he'll live right in the face of all his relatives.

She gave Yahweh — the one who had spoken to her — a name: "You are El Roi," she said, because she declared, "I have actually seen the one who sees me!"

That's why the well is called Beer Lahai Roi. It's still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

Hagar gave Abram a son, and Abram named his son — the one Hagar had given birth to — Ishmael.

Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.