Genesis 19

1The two angels arrived at Sodom toward evening, as Lot sat by the city's gate. Lot saw them, stood up to greet them, and bowed low with his face to the ground.

2Look, please, my lords; please turn aside to your servant’s house, lodge there, wash your feet, rise early, and go on your way.” They said, “No, for we will lodge in the square.

3He urged them insistently, and they turned toward him and entered his house. He prepared a banquet for them, baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house—from youth to elder, all the people from every quarter.

5They called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them."

6Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door after him.

7He said, "Please, my brothers, do not do evil."

8Look, please, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them what is good in your eyes. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shadow of my roof.

9They said, "Step back!" and said, "This one came to reside among us, yet he insists on judging! Now we will harm you worse than them." They crowded fiercely on the man Lot and advanced to break the door.

10The men reached out their hand and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.

11They struck the men at the door of the house with blindness, from small to great, so they grew weary trying to find the door.

12The men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and everyone belonging to you in the city? Bring them out from the place."

13For we are destroying this place, because their outcry has grown great before Yahweh, and Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.

14Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, those marrying his daughters, and said, "Arise! Get out from this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city." But he appeared as one mocking in the eyes of his sons-in-law.

15As dawn broke, the angels pressed Lot, saying, "Rise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the city's iniquity."

16He lingered, but the men seized his hand, his wife's hand, and his two daughters' hands in Yahweh's mercy toward him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

17When they brought them outside, he said, "Flee to save your life! Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountain, lest you be swept away!"

18Lot said to them, "No, please, my lord."

19See now, your servant has found grace in your eyes, and you have made your kindness abundant, which you have extended to me in sparing my life. I cannot flee to the mountain, lest calamity overtake me and I die.

20Look, please—this city is close by to flee to, and it is small. Please let me escape there (isn't it small?), and my soul will live.

21He said to him, "See, I have shown you favor concerning this matter also, that I will not destroy the city you have spoken of."

22Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there; therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

23The sun had risen over the earth when Lot entered Zoar.

24Yahweh rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from Yahweh out of the heavens.

25He overthrew those cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and the growth of the ground.

26His wife looked behind him and became a pillar of salt.

27Abraham arose early in the morning to the place where he had stood there before Yahweh.

28He looked over Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole plain, and he saw, behold, smoke rising from the land like the smoke of a furnace.

29When God laid waste to the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and sent Lot out from the midst of the destruction, as he overturned the cities where Lot lived.

30Lot went up from Zoar and lived in the mountains with his two daughters, because he feared living in Zoar. He lived in a cave, he and his two daughters.

31The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and no man remains in the land to come to us as is the way of all the earth."

32Come, let’s make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so we may keep seed alive from our father.

33That night they made their father drink wine; the firstborn came and lay with her father, but he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

34The next day the firstborn said to the younger, "Look, I lay with my father last night. Let's make him drink wine again tonight—go in and lie with him, so we can preserve seed from our father."

35They made their father drink wine that night as well; the younger rose, lay with him, and he didn't know when she lay down or when she rose.

36Both of Lot's daughters conceived by their father.

37The firstborn bore a son and named him Moab, who is the father of the Moabites to this day.

38The younger also bore a son, and she named him Ben-ammi; he is the father of Ammon's descendants to this day.