Chapter 19
1
And the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. And they saw Lot and rose to meet him and bowed with their faces to the ground.
2
He said, "Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant's house, stay the night, wash your feet, and rise early to go on your way." They said, "No, we will lodge in the street."
3
He urged them strongly, so they turned to him and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them, baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4
Before they lay down, the men of the city—the men of Sodom—surrounded the house, from youth to elder, all the people from every end.
5
They called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may know them."
6
Lot went out to them and closed the door behind him.
7
And he said, "No, please, my brothers, do not do evil."
8
Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as seems good in your eyes. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shadow of my city.
9
And they said, "Come near—here!" And they said, "This one came to sojourn and he would judge a judge! Now we will do worse evil to you than to them." And they pressed hard against the man Lot exceedingly, and they drew near to break the door.
10
The men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and they shut the door.
11
They struck the men who had opened the house with blindness, from the least to the greatest, and the men grew weary trying to find the entrance.
12
And the men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone here—your sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and all that you have in the city? Bring them out of this place."
13
For we are destroying this place because their cry has grown great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us for its destruction.
14
And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to his daughters, and said, "Rise, get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city." But he seemed like a joker to his sons-in-law.
15
And as dawn came up, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Rise, take your wife and your two daughters who are found, lest you be swept away in the iniquity of the city."
16
And he hesitated, and the men grasped his hand and his wife's hand and the hand of his two daughters, by the compassion of the LORD upon him. And they brought him out and led him outside the city.
17
And it was when he brought them out outside and he said, "Escape for your vital life force! Do not look behind you and do not stand in all the plain! Escape to the mountain lest you be swept away!"
18
Lot said to them, "No, my lords, please."
19
Now look, your servant has found grace in your eyes, and you have magnified your steadfast love, which you have shown me, in making my soul live. But I cannot escape to the hill, lest the evil overtake me and I die.
20
Look now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Escape there now—is it not small?—and my soul will live.
21
And he said to him, "Look, I have accepted your request also concerning this matter, so as not to overthrow the city of which you have spoken."
22
Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there. Therefore he named the city Zoar.
23
The sun had risen over the land, and Lot entered Zoar.
24
And the LORD rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of the heavens.
25
God overthrew the cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and the growth of the ground.
26
His wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27
And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
28
And he looked down on the face of Sodom and Gomorrah and on all the face of the land of the Kikkar, and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.
29
And it was when God destroyed the cities of the plain, and God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out from the midst of the overthrow, while overthrowing the cities in which Lot dwelt.