Genesis 19:1-36

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!” 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.