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.
Afraid to remain in Zoar, Lot left there and settled in the hill country and lived in a cave with his two daughters. One day, his firstborn suggested to the younger, “Our father is getting old, and there isn’t a man anywhere who could impregnate us in the normal way. Come, let’s get our father drunk with wine and have sex with him. That way we can at least have children through our father.”
That night, they got their father drunk with wine, and the firstborn went in and slept with him. Lot was so drunk he didn’t have a clue about what had happened. The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “I slept with my father last night. Tonight, it’s your turn. We’ll get him drunk with wine, and you can sleep with him and we can preserve our family line through our father.”
So they got their father drunk the second time; and the younger went in and slept with him. He was once again so drunk he had no clue what had happened. As a result, both Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son named Moab, who is the ancestor of the Moabites of today. The younger also had a son named Ben-Ammi, the ancestor of the Ammonites of today.
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