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.
MissionAssist 2018
Berĕshith (Genesis) 19
19
1And the two messengers came to Seḏom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Seḏom. And when Lot saw them, he rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground,
2and he said, “Look, please my masters, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet, and rise early and go your way.” And they said, “No, but let us spend the night in the open square.”
3But he urged them strongly, and they turned in to him and came into his house. And he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Seḏom, both old and young, all the people from every part, surrounded the house.
5And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, and let us ‘know’ them.”
6So Lot went out to them through the doorway, and shut the door behind him,
7and said, “Please, my brothers, do not do evil!
8Look, please, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Please, let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you wish, only do no deed to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.
9But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This one came in to sojourn, and should he always judge? Now we are going to treat you worse than them.” So they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door.
10But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.
11Then they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, and they wearied themselves to find the door.
12And the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city – bring them out of this place!
13For we are going to destroy this place, because the cry against them has grown great before the face of יהוה, and יהוה has sent us to destroy it.
14And 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 יהוה is going to destroy this city!” But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be as one joking.
15And when morning dawned, the messengers urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”
16And while he loitered, the men took hold of his hand, and his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, יהוה having compassion on him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.
17And it came to be, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed.”
18And Lot said to them, “Oh no, יהוה!
19“Look, please, your servant has found favour in your eyes, and you have increased your loving-commitment which you have shown me by saving my life, but I am unable to escape to the mountains, lest calamity overtake me and I die.
20“Look, please, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please let me escape there – is it not a small matter – and let my life be saved?”
21And He said to him, “Look, I have favoured you concerning this matter also, without overthrowing this city for which you have spoken.
22Hurry, escape there. For I am not able to do any deed until you arrive there. So the name of the city was called Tso‛ar.
23The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Tso‛ar.
24And יהוה rained sulphur and fire on Seḏom and Amorah, from יהוה out of the heavens.
25So He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
26But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a post of salt.
27And Aḇraham arose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before יהוה,
28and he looked toward Seḏom and Amorah, and toward all the land of the plain. And he looked and saw the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace.
29Thus it came to be, when Elohim destroyed the cities of the plain, that Elohim remembered Aḇraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.
30And Lot went up out of Tso‛ar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Tso‛ar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.
31And the first-born said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us, as is the way of all the earth.
32Come, let us make our father drink wine and lie with him, so that we preserve the seed of our father.
33So they made their father drink wine that night. And the first-born went in and lay with her father, and he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she arose.
34And it came to be on the next day that the first-born said to the younger, “See, I lay with my father last night. Let us make him drink wine tonight as well, and you go in and lie with him, so that we keep the seed of our father.”
35So they made their father drink wine that night as well. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she arose.
36Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.
37And the first-born bore a son and called his name Mo’aḇ, he is the father of the Mo’aḇites to this day.
38And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ammi, he is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.
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