That evening, the two angels came to Sodom while Lot was sitting at the city’s gateway. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed with his face to the ground. He said, “Please, my lords, come to your servant’s house to spend the night and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.”
“No,” they answered. “We will be fine to spend the night in the town square.”
But Lot was so insistent they finally agreed to go to his house. Lot had unleavened bread baked for them and prepared a feast, and they ate. But before they retired for the night, the men of the city, men young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom, to the last man, surrounded the house. They shouted out to Lot, “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them!”
Lot went outside, shutting the door behind him, and said to them, “No! My brothers, I beg you, don’t sink to such depravity! Look, I have two virgin daughters; I’ll bring them out to you, and you can do with them as you please. Only don’t do anything to these men, for they are guests in my house.”
“Get out of our way,” they replied. “This guy comes as a foreigner to live among us, and now he dares to judge us! We’ll inflict more harm on you than on them!” Just then they lunged at Lot and tried to break down the door, but the two angels reached out and pulled Lot safely back into the house and bolted the door. They struck the men outside the house, young and old, with one blazing flash of light so that they could not find the door!
Then the visitors said to Lot, “Who else lives here? Do you have any other family here—sons or daughters, sons-in-law or daughters-in-law who live in Sodom? Get them all out of the city, because we are about to destroy this place. A tremendous outcry against the people has come before YAHWEH, and he has sent us here to destroy it!”
So Lot went out to find the two men who were pledged to marry his daughters and told them, “Hurry, leave the city, for YAHWEH is about to destroy it!” But they thought he was only joking and paid him no attention.
At dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Go! Take your wife and your two daughters and leave or you will be consumed in the judgment about to come to the city!” But Lot hesitated, so the angels grabbed his hands and the hands of his wife and daughters and brought them outside the city, because YAHWEH was merciful to them. Once they were safely outside the city, the angels said to them, “Run for your lives! Don’t stop anywhere in the plain until you’ve reached the mountains. And don’t even look back, or you’ll die!”
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