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
1 The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth, 2and he said, “See now, my lords, please come into your servant’s house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way.”
They said, “No, but we will stay in the street all night.”
3 He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter. 5They called to Lot, and said to him, “Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them.”
6 Lot went out to them through the door, and shut the door after himself. 7He said, “Please, my brothers, don’t act so wickedly. 8See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.”
9 They said, “Stand back!” Then they said, “This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and he appoints himself a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them!” They pressed hard on the man Lot, and came near to break the door. 10But the men reached out their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door. 11They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
12 The men said to Lot, “Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place: 13for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown so great before the LORD that the LORD has sent us to destroy it.”
14 Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up! Get out of this place, for the LORD will destroy the city!”
But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking. 15When the morning came, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city.” 16But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand, and his two daughters’ hands, the LORD being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city. 17It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, “Escape for your life! Don’t look behind you, and don’t stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!”
18 Lot said to them, “Oh, not so, my lord. 19See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can’t escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die. 20See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn’t it a little one?), and my soul will live.”
21 He said to him, “Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22Hurry, escape there, for I can’t do anything until you get there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.#19:22 Zoar means “little”.
23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 24Then the LORD rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of the sky. 25He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. 26But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Abraham went up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. 28He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.
29 When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.
30 Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31The firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us in the way of all the earth. 32Come, let’s make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s family line.” 33They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she arose. 34It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let’s make him drink wine again tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s family line.” 35They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger went and lay with him. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she got up. 36Thus both of Lot’s daughters were with child by their father. 37The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38The younger 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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