Now Sarai had not borne Abram any children. And she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “See how the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. I begyou now, go and sleep with my maid, and perhaps I will have a son through her.”
And Abram did what Sarai had asked: he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. And when she knew that she was pregnant, she began to look down on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, “It is your fault, this insult. I put my maid in your bed, and now that she is pregnant she looks down on me. May the Lord judge if I am right or not.”
And Abram said, “Look, she is your maid; do what you want with her.”
And Sarai treated her harshly, and she ran away. And the Lord found her near a spring in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, where have you come from and where are you going?”
And she said, “I am running away from Sarai, my mistress.”
And the Lord said to her, “You are pregnant, and you will give birth to a son, and you will name him Ishmael, God Has Heard, because the Lord has heard your suffering. And he will be a wild donkey, his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and he will live at odds with all his kinsmen.”
And she called the Lord who had spoken to her El-ro’i, A God Who Can Be Seen; for she said, “Truly I have seen God and remained alive.” That is why the well is named Beer-lahai-ro’i, The Well of the One Who Saw and Remained Alive; it is between Kadesh and Bered.