Genesis 19:15-29

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!” Lot replied, “Oh no, my lords. You’ve been so gracious to your servant, and you’ve been so kind to save our lives, but I can’t make it to the mountains. It’s so far from here; disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die! Look, over there is a village close enough to run to, and it’s a small one. Let me escape there instead. You can see that it’s such a small village. Let my life be spared!” “All right,” he replied. “I will grant this request too. I will not destroy that village. Now, you must hurry. Run to that village, for I can’t do anything until you are there.” (That is why the village was called Zoar.) By mid-morning, Lot arrived at the small village of Zoar, And YAHWEH’s fire from heaven fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah. He completely destroyed the cities of the plain, and all their inhabitants and whatever grew in the valley. But Lot’s wife turned and gazed longingly on the city and turned into a pillar of salt. That morning, Abraham hurried back to the place where he had stood before YAHWEH. Looking down toward all the land of the plain, he saw columns of smoke billowing up from Sodom and Gomorrah —like the smoke of a furnace! So before God destroyed the cities of the plain where Lot had settled, he remembered his affection for Abraham and spared Lot from all the destruction.