Genesis 19
19
1-2The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening. Lot was sitting at the city gate. He saw them and got up to welcome them, bowing before them and said, “Please, my friends, come to my house and stay the night. Wash up. You can rise early and be on your way refreshed.”
They said, “No, we’ll sleep in the street.”
3But he insisted, wouldn’t take no for an answer; and they relented and went home with him. Lot fixed a hot meal for them and they ate.
4-5Before they went to bed, men from all over the city of Sodom, young and old, descended on the house from all sides and boxed them in. They yelled to Lot, “Where are the men who are staying with you for the night? Bring them out so we can have our sport with them!”
6-8Lot went out, barring the door behind him, and said, “Brothers, please, don’t be vile! Look, I have two daughters, virgins; let me bring them out; you can take your pleasure with them, but don’t touch these men—they’re my guests.”
9They said, “Get lost! You drop in from nowhere and now you’re going to tell us how to run our lives. We’ll treat you worse than them!” And they charged past Lot to break down the door.
10-11But the two men reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, locking the door. Then they struck blind the men who were trying to break down the door, both leaders and followers, leaving them groping in the dark.
12-13The two men said to Lot, “Do you have any other family here? Sons, daughters—anybody in the city? Get them out of here, and now! We’re going to destroy this place. The outcries of victims here to God are deafening; we’ve been sent to blast this place into oblivion.”
14Lot went out and warned the fiancés of his daughters, “Evacuate this place; God is about to destroy this city!” But his daughters’ would-be husbands treated it as a joke.
15At break of day, the angels pushed Lot to get going, “Hurry. Get your wife and two daughters out of here before it’s too late and you’re caught in the punishment of the city.”
16-17Lot was dragging his feet. The men grabbed Lot’s arm, and the arms of his wife and daughters—God was so merciful to them!—and dragged them to safety outside the city. When they had them outside, Lot was told, “Now run for your life! Don’t look back! Don’t stop anywhere on the plain—run for the hills or you’ll be swept away.”
18-20But Lot protested, “No, masters, you can’t mean it! I know that you’ve taken a liking to me and have done me an immense favor in saving my life, but I can’t run for the mountains—who knows what terrible thing might happen to me in the mountains and leave me for dead. Look over there—that town is close enough to get to. It’s a small town, hardly anything to it. Let me escape there and save my life—it’s a mere wide place in the road.”
21-22“All right, Lot. If you insist. I’ll let you have your way. And I won’t stamp out the town you’ve spotted. But hurry up. Run for it! I can’t do anything until you get there.” That’s why the town was called Zoar, that is, Smalltown.
23The sun was high in the sky when Lot arrived at Zoar.
24-25Then God rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah—a river of lava from God out of the sky!—and destroyed these cities and the entire plain and everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew from the ground.
26But Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.
27-28Abraham got up early the next morning and went to the place he had so recently stood with God. He looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah, surveying the whole plain. All he could see was smoke belching from the Earth, like smoke from a furnace.
29And that’s the story: When God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham and first got Lot out of there before he blasted those cities off the face of the Earth.
30Lot left Zoar and went into the mountains to live with his two daughters; he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his daughters.
31-32One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is getting old and there’s not a man left in the country by whom we can get pregnant. Let’s get our father drunk with wine and lie with him. We’ll get children through our father—it’s our only chance to keep our family alive.”
33-35They got their father drunk with wine that very night. The older daughter went and lay with him. He was oblivious, knowing nothing of what she did. The next morning the older said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Tonight, it’s your turn. We’ll get him drunk again and then you sleep with him. We’ll both get a child through our father and keep our family alive.” So that night they got their father drunk again and the younger went in and slept with him. Again he was oblivious, knowing nothing of what she did.
36-38Both daughters became pregnant by their father, Lot. The older daughter had a son and named him Moab, the ancestor of the present-day Moabites. The younger daughter had a son and named him Ben-Ammi, the ancestor of the present-day Ammonites.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Genesis 19
19
1 And the two Angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of the city. And when he had seen them, he rose up and went to meet them. And he reverenced prone on the ground.
2 And he said: "I beg you, my lords, turn aside to the house of your servant, and lodge there. Wash your feet, and in the morning you will advance on your way." And they said, "Not at all. But we will lodge in the street."
3 He pressed them very much to turn aside to him. And when they had entered his house, he made a feast for them, and he cooked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4 But before they went to bed, the men of the city surrounded the house, from boys to old men, all the people together.
5 And they called out to Lot, and they said to him: "Where are the men who entered to you in the night? Bring them out here, so that we may know them."
6 Lot went out to them, and blocking the door behind him, he said:
7 "Do not, I ask you, my brothers, do not be willing to commit this evil.
8 I have two daughters who as yet have not known man. I will bring them out to you; abuse them as it pleases you, provided that you do no evil to these men, because they have entered under the shadow of my roof."
9 But they said, "Move away from there." And again: "You have entered," they said, "as a stranger; should you then judge? Therefore, we will afflict you yourself more than them." And they acted very violently against Lot. And they were now at the point of breaking open the doors.
10 And behold, the men put out their hand, and they pulled Lot in to them, and they closed the door.
11 And they struck those who were outside with blindness, from the least to the greatest, so that they were not able to find the door.
12 Then they said to Lot: "Do you have here anyone of yours? All who are yours, sons-in-law, or sons, or daughters, bring them out of this city.
13 For we will eliminate this place, because the outcry among them has increased before the Lord, who sent us to destroy them."
14 And so Lot, going out, spoke to his sons-in-law, who were going to receive his daughters, and he said: "Rise up. Depart from this place. For the Lord will destroy this city." And it seemed to them that he was speaking playfully.
15 And when it was morning, the Angels compelled him, saying, "Arise, take your wife, and the two daughters that you have, lest you also should perish amid the wickedness of the city."
16 And, since he ignored them, they took his hand, and the hand of his wife, as well as that of his two daughters, because the Lord was sparing him.
17 And they brought him out, and placed him beyond the city. And there they spoke to him, saying: "Save your life. Do not look not back. Neither should you stay in the entire surrounding region. But save yourself in the mountain, lest you also should perish."
18 And Lot said to them: "I beg you, my lord,
19 though your servant has found grace before you, and you have magnified your mercy, which you have shown to me in saving my life, I cannot be saved on the mountain, lest perhaps some misfortune take hold of me and I die.
20 There is a certain city nearby, to which I can flee; it is a little one, and I will be saved in it. Is it not a modest one, and will not my soul live?"
21 And he said to him: "Behold, even now, I have heard your petitions about this, not to overturn the city on behalf of which you have spoken.
22 Hurry and be saved there. For I cannot do anything until you enter there." For this reason, the name of that city is called Zoar.
23 The sun had risen over the land, and Lot had entered into Zoar.
24 Therefore, the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulphur and fire, from the Lord, out of heaven.
25 And he overturned these cities, and all the surrounding region: all the inhabitants of the cities, and everything that springs from the land.
26 And his wife, looking behind herself, was turned into a statue of salt.
27 Then Abraham, rising up in the morning, in the place where he had stood before with the Lord,
28 looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and the entire land of that region. And he saw embers rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace.
29 For when God overthrew the cities of that region, remembering Abraham, he freed Lot from the overthrow of the cities, in which he had dwelt.
30 And Lot ascended from Zoar, and he stayed on the mountain, and likewise his two daughters with him, (for he was afraid to stay in Zoar) and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters with him.
31 And the elder said to the younger: "Our father is old, and no man remains in the land who can enter to us according to the custom of the whole world.
32 Come, let us inebriate him with wine, and let us sleep with him, so that we may be able to preserve offspring from our father."
33 And so they gave their father wine to drink that night. And the elder went in, and she slept with her father. But he did not perceive it, neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up.
34 Likewise, the next day, the elder said to the younger: "Behold, yesterday I slept with my father, let us give him wine to drink yet again this night, and you will sleep with him, so that we may save offspring from our father."
35 And then they gave their father wine to drink that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and slept with him. And not even then did he perceive when she lay down, or when she rose up.
36 Therefore, the two daughters of Lot conceived by their father.
37 And the elder gave birth to a son, and she called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites, even to the present day.
38 Likewise, the younger gave birth to a son, and she called his name Ammon, that is, 'the son of my people.' He is the father of the Ammonites, even today.