Genesis - Chapter 19

¹ When the two angels reached Sodom in the evening, Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. As soon as Lot saw them, he stood up to greet them, and bowed to the ground.

² 'My lords,' he said, 'please come down to your servant's house to stay the night and wash your feet. Then you can make an early start on your journey.' 'No,' they said, 'we shall spend the night in the square.'

³ But he pressed them so much that they went home with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking unleavened bread, and they had supper.

⁴ They had not gone to bed when the house was surrounded by the townspeople, the men of Sodom both young and old, all the people without exception.

⁵ Calling out to Lot they said, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so that we can have intercourse with them.'

⁶ Lot came out to them at the door and, having shut the door behind him,

⁷ said, 'Please, brothers, do not be wicked.

⁸ Look, I have two daughters who are virgins. I am ready to send them out to you, for you to treat as you please, but do nothing to these men since they are now under the protection of my roof.'

⁹ But they retorted, 'Stand back! This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge. Now we shall treat you worse than them.' Then they forced Lot back and moved forward to break down the door.

¹⁰ But the men reached out, pulled Lot back into the house with them, and shut the door.

¹¹ And they dazzled those who were at the door of the house, one and all, with a blinding light, so that they could not find the doorway.

¹² The men said to Lot, 'Have you anyone else here? Your sons, your daughters and all your people in the city, take them away,

¹³ for we are about to destroy this place, since the outcry to Yahweh against those in it has grown so loud that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.'

¹⁴ So Lot went off and spoke to his future sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters. 'On your feet!' he said, 'Leave this place, for Yahweh is about to destroy the city.' But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

¹⁵ When dawn broke the angels urged Lot on, 'To your feet! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.'

¹⁶ And as he hesitated, the men seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters -- Yahweh being merciful to him -- and led him out and left him outside the city.

¹⁷ When they had brought him outside, he was told, 'Flee for your life. Do not look behind you or stop anywhere on the plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away.'

¹⁸ 'Oh no, my lord!' Lot said to them,

¹⁹ 'You have already been very good to your servant and shown me even greater love by saving my life, but I cannot flee to the hills, or disaster will overtake me and I shall die.

²⁰ That town over there is near enough to flee to, and is small. Let me flee there-after all it is only a small place -- and so survive.'

²¹ He replied, 'I grant you this favour too, and will not overthrow the town you speak of.

²² Hurry, flee to that one, for I cannot do anything until you reach it.' That is why the town is named Zoar.

²³ The sun rose over the horizon just as Lot was entering Zoar.

²⁴ Then Yahweh rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire of his own sending.

²⁵ He overthrew those cities and the whole plain, with all the people living in the cities and everything that grew there.

²⁶ But Lot's wife looked back, and was turned into a pillar of salt.

²⁷ Next morning, Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood before Yahweh,

²⁸ and looking towards Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole area of the plain, he saw the smoke rising from the ground like smoke from a furnace.

²⁹ Thus it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he did not forget Abraham and he rescued Lot from the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities where Lot was living.

³⁰ After leaving Zoar Lot settled in the hill country with his two daughters, for he dared not stay at Zoar. He lived in a cave, he and his two daughters.

³¹ The elder said to the younger, 'Our father is an old man, and there is no one here to marry us in the normal way of the world.

³² Come on, let us ply our father with wine and sleep with him. In this way we can preserve the race by our father.'

³³ That night they made their father drunk, and the elder slept with her father though he was unaware of her coming to bed or of her leaving.

³⁴ The next day the elder said to the younger, 'Last night, I was the one who slept with our father. Let us make him drunk again tonight, and you go and sleep with him. In this way we can preserve the race by our father.'

³⁵ They made their father drunk that night too, and the younger went and slept with him, though he was unaware of her coming to bed or of her leaving.

³⁶ Both Lot's daughters thus became pregnant by their father.

³⁷ The elder gave birth to a son whom she named Moab; and he is the ancestor of the Moabites of our own times.

³⁸ The younger also gave birth to a son whom she named Ben-Ammi; and he is the ancestor of the Bene-Ammon of our own times.

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