Genesis 19
19
Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed
1#Ge 18:22; 18:1–5Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them he rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. 2#Ge 18:4; Heb 13:2Then he said, “Here, my lords, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet; and then you may rise early and go on your way.”
They said, “No, we will stay in the open square all night.”
3#Ge 18:6–8But he strongly insisted, so they turned aside with him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4#Ge 13:13; 18:20Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. 5#Jdg 19:22; Isa 3:9They then called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may have relations with them.”
6#Jdg 19:23So Lot went out through the door to them and shut the door behind him. 7Then he said, “Please, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8#Jdg 19:24Look, I have two daughters who have not been with a man. Please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
9#Ex 2:14; Ge 13:12But they replied, “Stand back!” Also, they said, “This man came here as an alien, and he keeps acting like a judge. We will deal worse with you than with them.” So they pressed hard against Lot, and came close to breaking down the door.
10But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them and shut the door. 11#2Ki 6:18; Ac 13:11Then they struck the men that were at the door of the house, both small and great, with blindness so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.
12#Ge 7:1; 2Pe 2:7Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, take them out of this place! 13#Ge 18:20For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has grown great before the presence of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
14#Nu 16:21; 16:45So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city!” But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.
15#Rev 18:4When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Otherwise you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.”
16And while he lingered, the men took hold of his and his wife’s hands, along with the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and brought him out and set him outside the city. 17#Ge 19:26; Mt 24:16–18When they had brought them out, one of them said to them, “Escape for your lives! Do not look behind you or stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountain, lest you be destroyed.”
18Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords! 19Your servant has found grace in your eyes, and you have shown your mercy, which you have shown to me by saving my life. However, I cannot escape to the mountain. Otherwise some evil will overtake me, and I will die. 20Look, this city is close enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Please, let me escape there (is it not a little one?), and my life will be saved.”
21He said to him, “I have granted your request in this matter also. I will not overthrow this city of which you have spoken. 22#Ge 14:2; 13:10Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
23The sun had risen over the land when Lot entered Zoar. 24#Dt 29:23; Isa 13:19Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was from the Lord out of heaven. 25#Ps 107:34So He overthrew those cities, all the valley, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26#Ge 19:17But his wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
27Now Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he stood before the Lord. 28#Rev 18:9Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace.
29#Ge 8:1; Dt 9:5So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the destruction, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.
Lot and His Daughters
30#Ge 19:19Then Lot left Zoar, and lived in the mountains, along with his two daughters who were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31#Ge 16:2; 16:4And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to have relations with us after the manner of all the earth. 32Let us make our father drink wine and let us lie with him, so that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”
33So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and had relations with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
34On the next day the firstborn said to the younger, “Indeed, last night I had relations with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also, so that you may go in and have relations with him, so that we may preserve the lineage of our father.” 35So they made their father drink wine that night also. Then the younger arose and lay down with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
36Therefore both the daughters of Lot were pregnant by their father. 37#Dt 2:9The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38#Dt 2:19The younger also gave birth to a son and called his name Ben-Ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.
Military Bible Association
Genesis 19
19
Chapter 19
Lot leaves Sodom
1The two angels arrived at Sodom. It was evening and Lot was sitting near the city gate. When Lot saw the angels, he got up to meet them. He turned his face towards the ground to respect them. 2Lot said, ‘My lords, please come to stay in my house. You can wash your feet and stay the night there. Then you can continue your journey early in the morning.’ The angels replied, ‘No, we will stay the night here in this public place.’ 3But Lot continued to ask them to stay with him. So the angels went with Lot to his house. Lot prepared a big meal for them, with some bread that he had baked without yeast. The angels ate the food.
4After that, they were preparing to go to bed. Then all the men who lived in Sodom came to Lot's house. They were old men and young men, who came from every part of the city. They stood all round the house. 5The men shouted to Lot, ‘Where are the men who are staying with you tonight? Bring them out here to us. We want to have sex with them.’
6Lot went outside to talk to the men. He shut the door of his house behind him. 7He said, ‘No, my friends. Please do not do this evil thing. 8See here! I have two daughters. They have never had sex with a man. Let me bring them out to you. Then you can do whatever you want with them. But do not do anything to these men. They are my visitors and I cannot let anyone hurt them.’
9The men from the city said, ‘Do not try to stop us! You are a stranger here in this city. You cannot tell us what to do! Be careful or we will do even worse things to you.’ They pushed against Lot and tried to reach the door of his house. They wanted to break the door and go in to the house. 10The two visitors who were inside the house opened the door. They pulled Lot back into his house and they shut the door quickly. 11Then they caused all the men outside to become blind. The young men of the city and the old men all became blind. As a result, they could not find the door of the house, even though they tried for some time.
12The two visitors asked Lot, ‘Do you have any of your family here in the city? Do you have any sons or daughters, or husbands for your daughters? If you have any family, you must take them away from here. 13We will soon destroy this city. Everybody knows how bad the people who live here are. As a result, the Lord has sent us to destroy this place.’
14So Lot went out of his house. He spoke to the men who would marry his daughters. He said to them, ‘Hurry! Leave this city now, because the Lord has decided to destroy it.’ But the men did not believe Lot. They thought he was not being serious.
15At dawn, the two angels told Lot he must leave quickly. They said to him, ‘Hurry! Take your wife and take your two daughters who are here. If you do not go quickly, you will all die when the Lord destroys the city.’ 16But Lot did not move. #19:16 Lot and his family did not want to leave Sodom. They would be leaving everything that they had. So the angels took hold of Lot's hand, as well as the hands of his wife and his two daughters. The Lord was very kind to Lot and his family and the angels led them away from the city.
17When they had reached a place outside the city, one of the angels said, ‘Now run! Your lives are in danger. Do not look behind you! Do not stop anywhere in this valley. Run up into the mountains or you will die.’ 18But Lot said, ‘No! Please, my lords, I cannot do that! 19I am your humble servant and you have been very kind to me. You have saved my life. But I cannot run away into the mountains. If I try to do that, this punishment will catch me before I reach there. Then I will surely die. 20Look! See that town over there. It is near and I can run to it safely. And it is a small town. So please let me run there. You can see that it is only a small place. If I go there, I will stay alive.’
21The angel said to Lot, ‘OK, I will let you do what you have asked. I will not destroy that town. 22But run there quickly. I cannot do anything until you arrive in the town.’ (The name of the town became ‘Zoar’, because it was small.)
23Lot reached Zoar at the time when the sun was rising that morning.
24Then the Lord poured sulphur that was on fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah. It fell from the sky like rain. #19:24 God used hot sulphur to destroy the cities. Sulphur is yellow. It burns quickly with a lot of heat. But when it gets cold, it becomes like stone. Hot sulphur covered the cities and the people in them. It burnt them. It became like stone over everything in the city. 25In that way God destroyed those cities and everything in the valley. He killed all the people who lived in those cities. And he killed all the plants that grew on the land.
26But as they ran away, Lot's wife looked back at the city. When she did that, she became a large piece of salt, like a pillar. #19:26 The angel had told Lot and his family not to look back. See Genesis 19:17. Lot's wife wanted to go back to the city because she liked living there.
27Early in the morning, Abraham returned to the place where he had spoken with the Lord. 28He looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole valley. He saw thick dark smoke that was rising from the land. It was the smoke from a big fire.
29When God destroyed the cities of the valley, he saved Lot from that punishment. God remembered what Abraham had asked him. He took Lot away from the cities where he had lived. Then God destroyed those cities.
Lot and his daughters
30Lot was afraid to live in Zoar. So he took his two daughters and they went up into the mountains. They lived together in a cave. 31One day, the older daughter said to her sister, ‘Our father is now old. There are no men who live near here, so there is nobody to marry us. We cannot have sex like everyone on the earth wants to do. 32So we should give our father much wine to drink. When he becomes drunk, we will have sex with him. Then our father's family will continue to have descendants.’
33That night they caused their father to become drunk with wine. The older daughter had sex with him. Lot was very drunk. He did not know when she came to him. And he did not know when she left him. 34The next day the older daughter said to her younger sister, ‘Last night I had sex with my father. We should make him drunk with wine again tonight. Then you can have sex with him. As a result, our father's family will continue.’
35So that night, they caused their father to become drunk again. The younger daughter had sex with her father. He did not know when she came to him. And he did not know when she left him.
36In that way, Lot caused both of his daughters to become pregnant. 37The older daughter gave birth to a son. She called him Moab. He became the ancestor of the Moabites. 38The younger daughter also gave birth to a son. She called him Ben-Ammi. He became the ancestor of the Ammonites.
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