<h3>GOD'S CARE FOR THE BOY ISHMAEL</h3>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus033.jpg" width-obs="329" height-obs="400" alt="Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness" title="Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness" /> <div><small>© <i>Curtis Publishing Company</i></small></div>
<div class='center'><i><b>Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness</b></i><br/>
<small>Painted by W. L. Taylor</small></div>
</div>
<p>Jehovah remembered what he had told Sarah, and he did as he
had promised. So Sarah had a son, and when the child grew up,
Abraham made a great feast on the day that he was weaned. But
Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian and of Abraham playing
with her son Isaac. And she said to Abraham, "Drive out this
slave girl and her son, for the son of this slave girl shall not be heir
with my son Isaac." This request was very displeasing to Abraham
because the boy was his son. But Jehovah said to Abraham, "Do
not be displeased because of the boy and because of your slave girl.
Listen to all that Sarah says to you, for Isaac only and his children
shall bear your name. But I will also make of the son of the slave
girl a great nation, because he is your son."</p>
<p>Then Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and
a skin of water and gave it to Hagar; and he put the boy upon her
shoulder and sent her away. So she set out and wandered in the
desert of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she left
the child under one of the desert shrubs and went a short distance
away and sat down opposite him, for she said, "Let me not see the
child die."</p>
<p>While she sat there, the boy began to cry; and Jehovah heard
the cry of the boy, and said, "What troubles you, Hagar? Fear
not, for Jehovah has heard the cry of the boy. Rise, lift him up,
and hold him fast by the hand, for I will make him a great nation."
And Jehovah opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. Then
she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.</p>
<p>And Jehovah cared for the boy; and when he grew up, he lived
in the wilderness of Paran and became a bowman. And his mother
secured a wife for him from Egypt.</p>
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