1The two messengers came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them and rose to meet them, and he bowed down with his face to the ground.2He said, "Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant's house and lodge and wash your feet; then you shall rise early and go on your way." They answered, "No, we will lodge in the street."3He urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house. He made a feast 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 young to old, all the people from every quarter.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 may know them."6Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door behind him.7He said, "Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly."8Behold, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as is good in your eyes; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shadow of my roof.9They said, "Stand back." Then they said, "This one came to sojourn, and he is judging; now we will treat you worse than them." They pressed hard against the man, against Lot, and drew near to break the door.10The men reached out their hands, brought Lot to them inside the house, and shut the door.11They struck the men who were at the entrance of the house with blindness, from the least to the greatest, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the entrance.12The men said to Lot, "Do you still have anyone here—son-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else belonging to you in the city? Bring them out of this place."13For we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.14Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters. He said, "Rise, go out from this place, for the LORD is about to ruin the city." But he seemed to his sons-in-law as one who was joking.15When the dawn rose, the messengers 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."16When he delayed, the men took hold of him by his hand and by the hand of his wife and by the hand of his two daughters, in the compassion of the LORD upon him; they brought him out and set him outside the city.17When they brought them outside, he said, "Escape for your life; do not look behind you and do not stand in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away."18Lot said to them, "Please, my lord, no."19Behold, your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life; but I cannot escape to the mountain, lest the disaster overtake me and I die.20Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Let me escape there—is it not small?—and my life will be saved.21He said to him, "Behold, I have lifted your face also in this matter, so that I will not overturn the city of which you have spoken."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 land when Lot came to Zoar.24Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven.25He overturned those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the land.26His wife looked behind him and became a pillar of salt.27Abraham rose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD.28He looked down upon Sodom and Gomorrah and upon all the face of the land of the plain, and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of the kiln.29When God ruined the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out from the midst of the overthrow when he overturned the cities in which Lot had dwelt.