1The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them he rose to meet them and bowed low with his face to the ground. 2He said, 'I pray you, sirs, turn aside to my humble home, spend the night there and wash your feet; you can rise early and continue your journey.' 'No,' they answered, 'we will spend the night in the street.' 3But Lot was so insistent that they did turn aside and enter his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking unleavened cakes, and they ate them. 4Before they lay down to sleep, the men of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded the house—everyone without exception. 5They called to Lot and asked him where the men were who had entered his house that night. 'Bring them out', they shouted, 'so that we can have intercourse with them.'
6Lot went out into the doorway to them, closed the door behind him 7and said, 'No, my friends, do not be so wicked. 8Look, I have two daughters, both virgins ; let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them ; but do not touch these men, because they have come under the shelter of my roof.' 9They said, 'Out of our way! This man has come and settled here as an alien, and does he now take it upon himself to judge us? We will treat you worse than them.' They crowded in on the man Lot and pressed close to smash in the door. 10But the two men inside reached out, pulled Lot in, and closed the door. 11Then they struck the men in the doorway with blindness, both small and great, so that they could not ?nd the door.
12The two men said to Lot, 'Have you anyone else here, sons-in-law, sons, or daughters, or any who belong to you in the city? Get them out of this place, 13because we are going to destroy it. The outcry against it has been so great that the LORD has sent us to destroy it.' 14So Lot went out and spoke to his intended sons-in-law . He said, 'Be quick and leave this place; the LORD is going to destroy the city.' But they did not take him seriously.
15As soon as it was dawn, the angels urged Lot to go, saying, 'Be quick, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.' 16When he lingered, they took him by the hand, with his wife and his daughters, and, because the LORD had spared him, led him on until he was outside the city. 17When they had brought them out, they said, 'Flee 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.' 18Lot replied, 'No, sirs. 19You have shown your servant favour and you have added to your unfailing care for me by saving my life, but I cannot escape to the hills; I shall be overtaken by the disaster, and die. 20Look, here is a town, only a small place, near enough for me to reach quickly. Let me escape to it—it is very small—and save my life.' 21He said to him, 'I grant your request: I will not overthrow this town you speak of. 22But ?ee there quickly, because I can do nothing until you are there.' That is why the place was called Zoar . 23The sun had risen over the land as Lot entered Zoar;
24and then the LORD rained down fire and brimstone from the skies on Sodom and Gomorrah. 25He overthrew those cities and destroyed all the Plain, with everyone living there and everything growing in the ground. 26But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she turned into a pillar of salt.
27Next morning Abraham rose early and went to the place where he had stood in the presence of the LORD. 28He looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah and all the wide extent of the Plain, and there he saw thick smoke rising high from the earth like the smoke of a lime-kiln. 29Thus, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, he thought of Abraham and rescued Lot from the disaster, the overthrow of the cities where he had been living.
30Lot went up from Zoar and settled in the hill-country with his two daughters, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar; he lived with his two daughters in a cave. 31The elder daughter said to the younger, 'Our father is old and there is not a man in the country to come to us in the usual way. 32Come now, let us make our father drink wine and then lie with him and in this way keep the family alive through our father.' 33So that night they gave him wine to drink, and the elder daughter came and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. 34Next day the elder said to the younger, 'Last night I lay with my father. Let us give him wine to drink again tonight; then you go in and lie with him. So we shall keep the family alive through our father.' 35So they gave their father wine to drink again that night, and the younger daughter went and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. 36In this way both Lot's daughters came to be with child by their father. 37The elder daughter bore a son and called him Moab; he was the ancestor of the present Moabites. 38The younger also bore a son, whom she called Ben-ammi; he was the ancestor of the present Ammonites.
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