Genesis 19

1The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, while Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.

2He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you can get up early and go on your way.” They said, “No, we will spend the night in the town square.”

3But he pressed them so strongly that they turned aside with him and went into his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked bread without yeast, and they ate.

4Before they had gone to bed, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house—young and old, all the people from every part of the city.

5They called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we can have sex with them.”

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

7He said, “Please, my brothers, do not do this wicked thing.

8Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them whatever you like. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

9But they said, “Get out of the way!” Then they said, “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! Now we will treat you worse than them.” They pressed hard against Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

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

11Then they struck the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, with blindness, so that they wore themselves out trying to find the entrance.

12The men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, or anyone else you have in the city—bring them out of this place,

13for we are about to destroy this place. The outcry against its people has become so great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.”

14So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh is about to destroy the city.” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

15As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.”

16When he hesitated, the men seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters, because Yahweh was merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city.

17As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the hills, or you will be swept away!”

18But Lot said to them, “Oh no, my lord, please!

19Look, your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot flee to the hills, or disaster will overtake me and I will die.

20Look, this town over there is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please let me escape there—is it not small?—and my life will be spared.”

21He said to him, “Very well, I grant this request too, and I will not overthrow the town you have spoken of.

22Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” That is why the town was called Zoar.

23The sun had risen over the land by the time Lot reached Zoar.

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

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

26But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

27Early the next morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood before Yahweh.

28He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain, and he saw smoke rising from the land like the smoke of a furnace.

29When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and he sent Lot out of the midst of the catastrophe when he overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

30Lot went up from 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.

31The older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to sleep with us, as is the custom all over the earth.

32Come, let us get our father to drink wine, and then we will sleep with him and preserve offspring through our father.”

33So that night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she got up.

34The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let us get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him, so that we can preserve offspring through our father.”

35So they got their father to drink wine that night as well, and the younger daughter went and slept with him. He did not know when she lay down or when she got up.

36So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.

37The older daughter gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day.

38The younger daughter also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-ammi. He is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.