Lot Welcomes the Strangers
19 1 When the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. As soon as Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. a a v1 Only two of the three figures who appeared to Abraham at Mamre traveled on to Sodom — our Father stayed and walked with Abraham; these two angels carried the judgment forward. 2 He said, "Please, my lords, come to your servant's house. Spend the night and wash your feet, and you can rise early and go on your way." "No," they said, "we will spend the night in the square."
3 But he urged them strongly, so they went with him into his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked bread made without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had lain down, the men of the city — the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man — surrounded the house. 5 They called out to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we can have sex with them."
6 Lot went out to them at the entrance, shutting the door behind him, 7 and said, "Please, my brothers, do not act so wickedly." 8 "Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them as you see fit. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof."
9 But they said, "Out of the way!" And they said, "This man came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to be the judge. We will deal worse with you than with them." They pressed hard against Lot and rushed forward to break down the door. 10 But the men reached out, pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the entrance of the house with blindness, both young and old, so that they wore themselves out trying to find the doorway.
12 Then the men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here — a son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, anyone you have in the city? Get them out of this place." 13 "For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has grown great before our Father, and our Father has sent us to destroy it."
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. "Get up, get out of this place," he said, "for our Father is about to destroy the city!" But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.
15 As dawn broke, the angels urged Lot on, saying, "Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished." 16 And when he lingered, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters, for our Father was merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. 17 When they had brought them outside, one of them said, "Run for your life! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, or you will be swept away."
18 But Lot said to them, "No, please, my Sovereign Father." 19 "Look, your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown me great kindness in sparing my life. But I cannot escape to the hills; the disaster will overtake me, and I will die." 20 "Look, this town is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there — is it not a little one? — and my life will be saved."
21 He said to him, "I grant you this favor too: I will not overthrow the town you speak of." 22 "Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you reach it." That is why the town was named Zoar. b b v22 Zoar means "little" — Lot named the town after his own plea that it was "only a little one."
23 The sun had risen over the land when Lot reached Zoar. 24 Then our Father rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire, from our Father out of the heavens. c c v24 Some Christian readers have heard two Persons of the Trinity in this verse's doubled naming, but FHB hears one — our Father, whose judgment comes from his own throne. 25 He overthrew those cities and the whole valley, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26 But Lot's wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Early the next morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood before our Father. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace.
29 So when our Father destroyed the cities of the plain, our Father remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
Lot in the Cave
30 Now Lot went up from Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. So he lived in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to sleep with us as is the way of the whole world." 32 "Come, let us give our father wine to drink, and we will sleep with him, so that we may preserve our family line through our father." 33 So that night they gave their father wine to drink, and the firstborn went in and slept with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she got up. 34 The next day the firstborn said to the younger, "Look, last night I slept with my father. Let us give him wine to drink tonight also, and you go in and sleep with him, so that we may preserve our family line through our father." 35 So that night also they gave their father wine to drink, and the younger got up and slept with him; he did not know when she lay down or when she got up. 36 So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38 The younger also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites to this day.