Genesis 19
19
The Evil City of Sodom
1That evening, while Lot was sitting near the city gate,#19.1 near the city gate: In a large area where the people would gather for community business and for meeting with friends. the two angels#19.1 two angels: The two men of 18.22. arrived in Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up, bowed down low, 2and said, “Gentlemen, I am your servant. Please come to my home. You can wash your feet, spend the night, and be on your way in the morning.”
They told him, “No, we'll spend the night in the city square.” 3But Lot kept insisting, until they finally agreed and went home with him. He quickly baked some bread,#19.3 bread: The Hebrew text has “bread without yeast,” which could be made quickly when guests came without warning. cooked a meal, and they ate.
4Before Lot and his guests could go to bed, every man in Sodom, young and old, came and stood outside his house 5#Jg 19.22-24. and started shouting, “Where are your visitors? Send them out, so we can have sex with them!”
6Lot went outside and shut the door behind him. 7Then he said, “Friends, please don't do such a terrible thing! 8I have two daughters who have never had sex. I'll bring them out, and you can do what you want with them. But don't harm these men. They are guests in my home.”
9“Don't get in our way,” the crowd answered. “You're a foreigner. What right do you have to order us around? We'll do worse things to you than we're going to do to them.”
The crowd kept arguing with Lot. Finally, they rushed toward the door to break it down. 10But the two angels in the house reached out and pulled Lot safely inside. 11#2 K 6.18. Then they struck blind everyone in the crowd, and none of them could even find the door.
12-13The two angels said to Lot, “The Lord has heard many terrible things about the people of Sodom, and he has sent us here to destroy the city. Take your family and leave. Take every relative you have in the city, as well as the men your daughters are going to marry.”
14Lot went to the men who were engaged to his daughters and said, “Hurry up and get out of here! The Lord is going to destroy this city.” But they thought he was joking, and they laughed at him.
15Early the next morning the two angels tried to make Lot hurry and leave. They said, “Take your wife and your two daughters and get away from here as fast as you can! If you don't, every one of you will be killed when the Lord destroys the city.” 16#2 P 2.7,8. At first, Lot just stood there. But the Lord wanted to save him. So the angels took Lot, his wife, and his two daughters by the hand and led them out of the city. 17When they were outside, one of the angels said, “Run for your lives! Don't even look back. And don't stop in the valley. Run to the hills, where you'll be safe.”
18-19Lot answered, “You have done us a great favor, sir. You have saved our lives, but please don't make us go to the hills. That's too far away. The city will be destroyed before we can get there, and we will be killed when it happens. 20There's a town near here. It's only a small place, but my family and I will be safe, if you let us go there.”
21“All right, go there,” he answered. “I won't destroy that town. 22Hurry! Run! I can't do anything until you are safely there.”
The town was later called Zoar#19.22 Zoar: In Hebrew “Zoar” sounds like “small.” because Lot had said it was small.
Sodom and Gomorrah Are Destroyed
23The sun was coming up as Lot reached the town of Zoar, 24#3 Macc 2.5; Mt 10.15; 11.23,24; Lk 10.12; 17.29; 2 P 2.6; Jd 7. and the Lord sent burning sulfur down like rain on Sodom and Gomorrah. 25He destroyed those cities and everyone who lived in them, as well as their land and the trees and grass that grew there.
26 #
Ws 10.7; Lk 17.32. On the way, Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a block of salt.
27That same morning Abraham got up and went to the place where he had stood and spoken with the Lord. 28He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and saw smoke rising from all over the land—it was like a flaming furnace.
29When God destroyed the cities of the valley where Lot lived, he remembered his promise to Abraham and saved Lot from the terrible destruction.
Moab and Ammon
30Lot was afraid to stay on in Zoar. So he took his two daughters and moved to a cave in the hill country. 31One day his older daughter said to her sister, “Our father is old, and there are no men anywhere for us to marry. 32Let's get our father drunk! Then we can sleep with him and have children.” 33That night they got their father drunk, and the older daughter got in bed with him, but he was too drunk even to know she was there.
34The next day the older daughter said to her sister, “I slept with my father last night. We'll get him drunk again tonight, so you can sleep with him, and we can each have a child.” 35That night they got their father drunk, and this time the younger sister slept with him. But once again he was too drunk even to know she was there.
36That's how Lot's two daughters had children. 37The older daughter named her son Moab,#19.37 Moab: In Hebrew “Moab” sounds like “from (my) father.” and he is the ancestor of the Moabites. 38The younger daughter named her son Benammi,#19.38 Benammi: In Hebrew “Benammi” means “son of my relative.” and he is the ancestor of the Ammonites.
Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Genesis 19
19
Sodom and Gomorrah
1Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, while Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground.
2Then he said, “Here, please my lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house, spend the night and wash your feet. Then you can get up early and go on your way.” But they said, “No. We will spend the night in the open plaza.”
3But he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and they came into his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked matzot , and they ate.
4They had not yet lain down when the men of the city (the men of Sodom) surrounded the house—from youth to elderly, all the people without exception.
5And they called out to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have relations with them!”
6But Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind him,
7and said, “Please, my brothers, don’t act wickedly.
8Look, I have two daughters who haven’t been intimate with a man. Please let me bring them out to you—do to them whatever is good in your eyes! However, do nothing to these men—since they have come under the protection of my roof.”
9“Get out of the way!” they said, and they said, “This one came as an outsider and dares to judge! Now we’ll treat you worse than them!” So they strongly pressed against the man, Lot, and moved in close to break the door down.
10But the men reached out their hands, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.
11Then they struck the men at the doorway of the house with blindness—from youth to elderly—so that they gave up trying to find the doorway.
12Then the men said to Lot, “Who else related to you is still here? A son-in-law, your sons and your daughters, whoever else is related to you in the city—bring them out of the place!
13For we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before Adonai that Adonai has sent us to destroy it.”
14So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were going to marry his daughters, “Get up!” he said, “Get out of this place! For Adonai is about to destroy the city!” But in the eyes of his sons-in-law, he was like a joker.
15So when morning dawned the angels rushed Lot, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be swept away with the city’s iniquity!”
16But he hesitated. So the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand and his two daughters’ hands—because of Adonai’s compassion for him—and they brought him out and left him outside the city.
17When they brought them outside, one said, “Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stop anywhere in the surrounding area! Escape to the hills, or else you’ll be swept away!”
18But Lot said to them, “No, my Lord, please!
19Look, please, your servant has found favor in Your eyes and You have magnified Your merciful loyalty, which You have shown me by letting me live. But I can’t escape to the hill country—for the disaster will overtake me and I’ll die!
20Look, please, this city is close enough to flee there, and it’s little. Please let me escape there. Isn’t it small? And let me live!”
21So He said to him, “Behold, I will grant your request concerning this matter too—not to demolish the city of which you have spoken.
22Hurry! Flee to safety there, because I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” (This is why the town is named Zoar.)
23The moment the sun rose upon the land, Lot entered Zoar,
24and Adonai rained sulfur and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah from Adonai out of the sky.
25So He demolished these cities and the whole surrounding area, all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the ground.
26But his wife looked behind him and she turned into a pillar of salt.
27Now Abraham rose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Adonai,
28and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward the entire land of the surrounding area, and saw, behold, the smoke of the land ascended like smoke from a furnace.
29So it was, as God destroyed the cities of the surrounding area, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the upheaval, when He demolished the cities where Lot had dwelt.
Lot Fathers Moab and Ammon
30Then Lot went up from Zoar and dwelled on the mountain, his two daughters with him, because he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. So he lived in a cave—he and his two daughters.
31Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to come to us as is the custom of the whole land.
32Come on! Let’s make our father drink wine so that we can lie with him and keep the seed from our father alive.
33So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn came and lay down with her father. Yet he did not know that she lay down and got up.
34On the following day, the firstborn said to the younger, “See! I slept with my father last night. Let’s make him drink wine tonight as well. Come on! Sleep with him so that we’ll keep the seed from our father alive.”
35So they made their father drink wine that night as well, and the younger got up and lay down with him and he did not know that she lay down and got up.
36So Lot’s two daughters become pregnant by their father.
37Then the firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab: he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day.
38The younger also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-Ammi: he is the ancestor of the sons of Ammon to this day.
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