Genesis 19

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

“Sirs,” he said, “please come to your servant's house. Wash your feet and stay the night, and you can get up early and be on your way.” “No,” they said, “we'll spend the night in the square.”

But he pressed them so hard that they went with him and came into his house. And he made a meal for them, baked bread without yeast, and they ate.

Before they'd gone to bed, the men of the city — the men of Sodom, young and old, the whole lot of them — surrounded the house.

And they called out to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us.”

Lot went out to them, shut the door behind him,

and said, “Don't. Don't do this wicked thing.

Look — I've got two daughters who've never been with a man. Let me bring them out to you and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men. They've come under the shelter of my roof.”

“Get out of the way,” they said. And they said, “This one came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to be the judge. We'll treat you worse than them.” And they pushed hard against Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

But the men inside reached out, pulled Lot into the house and shut the door.

Then they struck the men at the door with blindness, young and old, so that they couldn't find the doorway.

And the two men said to Lot, “Have you got anyone else here — sons-in-law, sons, daughters, anyone in the city who's yours? Get them out of here.

We're going to destroy this place. The outcry against these people before the Lord is so great that He's sent us to destroy it.”

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. The Lord's about to destroy the city.” But they thought he was joking.

At first light the angels urged Lot on. “Hurry up. Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you'll be swept away when the city's punished.”

And when he hesitated, the men took hold of his hand and his wife's hand and the hands of his two daughters, because the Lord was merciful to him, and they led them out and put them outside the city.

Once they were out, one of them said, “Run for your life. Don't look back and don't stop anywhere on the plain. Get to the hills, or you'll be swept away.”

But Lot said, “No, Lord, please.

Your servant has found favour with You, and You've been very kind in sparing my life. But I can't get to the hills — the disaster will catch me and I'll die.

Look, there's a town near enough to run to, and it's small. Let me go there — it's only small, isn't it — and my life will be spared.”

And He said, “Alright. I'll grant you this as well. I won't overthrow the town you're talking about.

But hurry up and get there, because I can't do anything until you arrive.” That's why the town was called Zoar.

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

Then the Lord rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the Lord, out of the sky.

He overthrew those cities and the whole plain, everyone living in the cities, and everything growing on the ground.

But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Early the next morning Abraham went back to the place where he'd stood before the Lord.

He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole plain, and he saw smoke going up from the land like smoke from a furnace.

So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham, and He brought Lot out of the middle of the disaster that overturned the cities Lot had been living in.

Lot went up out of Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave, he and his two daughters.

And the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father's old, and there's no man around here to give us children, the way it's done everywhere else.

Let's get our father to drink wine, and sleep with him, so we can keep our father's line going.”

So that night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He wasn't aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

The next day the older said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him, so we can keep our father's line going.”

So they got their father to drink wine that night as well, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. He wasn't aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.

So both of Lot's daughters fell pregnant by their father.

The older had a son and called him Moab. He's the father of the Moabites of today.

The younger had a son too, and called him Ben-Ammi. He's the father of the Ammonites of today.