Genesis 19

¹It was evening when the two angels reached Sodom. Lot was sitting at the city gate, and as soon as he saw them he stood up to greet them and bowed low, his face to the ground. ²“Please, my lords,” he said, “come aside to your servant’s house. Wash your feet and stay the night, and you can be up early and on your way.” “No,” they answered, “we will stay out in the square tonight.” ³But he kept pressing them until they turned aside with him and went into his house. He prepared a meal for them and baked bread without yeast, and they ate. ⁴They had not yet gone to bed when the men of the city, the men of Sodom, closed in around the house. Young and old, every man from every part of town was there. ⁵They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to stay with you tonight? Send them out to us. We mean to have sex with them.” ⁶Lot went out to them at the doorway and closed the door behind him. ⁷“My friends,” he said, “please do not commit this wicked act. ⁸Listen, I have two daughters who have never been with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do with them whatever you please. But do nothing to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof.” ⁹“Get out of the way!” they shouted. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We will do worse to you than to them.” They pushed hard against Lot and moved in to break down the door. ¹⁰But the two men inside reached out, pulled Lot back into the house with them and shut the door. ¹¹Then they struck the men at the doorway with a blinding light, every one of them, young and old, so that they groped about in vain for the door.^{a 12}Then the men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of this place, ¹³because we are going to destroy it. The outcry against its people has grown so great before the LORD that he has sent us to destroy the city.” ¹⁴So Lot went out and told the men who were engaged to his daughters, “Hurry, leave this place! The LORD is going to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was not serious.^{b 15}As day was breaking, the angels pressed Lot to hurry. “Up!” they said. “Take your wife and the two daughters who are here with you, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” ¹⁶When he still hesitated, the men took hold of his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters, because the LORD had pity on him. They led him out and left him outside the city. ¹⁷Once they had brought them out, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Do not look behind you or stop anywhere on the plain. Flee to the hills, or you will be swept away!” ¹⁸But Lot said to them, “Please, my lord, not that!^{c 19}You have been kind to your servant and have shown me great mercy by saving my life. But I cannot get as far as the hills. The disaster will catch me before I get there, and I will die. ²⁰There is a town close by that I can reach, and it is only a small one. Please let me flee there. It is so small, is it not? Then I will live.” ²¹“Very well,” he answered. “I will grant this request as well. I will not destroy the town you speak of. ²²But hurry and get there, because I can do nothing until you arrive.” That is why the town came to be called Zoar. ²³By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun was up over the land. ²⁴Then the LORD sent burning sulfur pouring down on Sodom and Gomorrah. It came from the LORD, out of the sky. ²⁵So he overthrew those cities and the whole plain, along with everyone who lived in the cities and every plant that grew there. ²⁶But Lot’s wife, who was following behind him, looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. ²⁷Early the next morning Abraham went back to the place where he had stood in the presence of the LORD. ²⁸He looked down over Sodom and Gomorrah and across the whole land of the plain, and saw smoke rising from the ground like smoke from a furnace. ²⁹So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the disaster that overturned the cities where Lot had made his home. ³⁰Afterward Lot left Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. ³¹One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is getting old, and there is no man anywhere around to marry us and give us children, as is the custom everywhere. ³²Come, let us give our father wine to drink and then lie with him. That way we can keep our father’s family line alive.” ³³That night they gave their father wine to drink, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of her lying down or getting up.^{d 34}The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let us give him wine to drink again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him. Then we will both keep our father’s line alive.” ³⁵So again that night they gave their father wine, and the younger daughter went and slept with him. Again he was not aware of her lying down or getting up. ³⁶In this way both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their own father. ³⁷The older daughter had a son and named him Moab. He is the ancestor of the Moabites who live today. ³⁸The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-ammi. He is the ancestor of the Ammonites who live today.