Genesis 19

1 The two messengers came to Sodom in the evening, while Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 He said, "Please, my lords, 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 town square." 3 But he pressed them hard, so they turned aside to him and went into his house. He made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4 Before they had lain down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from young to old, all the people from every quarter. 5 They called 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 sex with them." 6 Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind him. 7 He said, "Please, my brothers, do not do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever seems good to you. Only do nothing to these men, because this is why they have come under the shelter of my roof beam."

9 But they said, "Get out of the way!" And they said, "This one came here as a foreigner, and now he keeps judging us! Now we will treat you worse than them." They pushed hard against the man, against Lot, and came close to break down the door. 10 But the men inside reached out their hands, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men at the doorway of the house with a blinding light, both small and great, and they wore themselves out trying to find the doorway. 12 Then the men said to Lot, "Who else do you have here? A son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, all you have in the city—bring them out of this place. 13 For we are about to destroy this place. Their outcry has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it." 14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, the men who were marrying his daughters. He said, "Get up, get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city." But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. 15 As dawn was breaking, the messengers urged Lot on. They said, "Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the city's guilt." 16 But he lingered. So, in the LORD's pity for him, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand and the hands of his two daughters. They brought him out and set him down outside the city.

17 When they had brought them outside, he said, "Get away for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stop anywhere in the plain. Get away to the mountains, or you will be swept away." 18 But Lot said to them, "Oh no, please, Lord! 19 Your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great loyalty by saving my life. But I cannot get away to the mountains, or the disaster will catch up with me, and I will die. 20 Look, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is only a little one. Please let me get away there. It is only a little one, isn't it? Then I will stay alive." 21 He said to him, "Very well, I grant you this request too. I will not overturn the city you have spoken of. 22 Hurry, get away there, because I can do nothing until you arrive there." That is why the city was called Zoar. 23 The sun had risen over the land when Lot came to Zoar. 24 Then the LORD rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD, out of the sky.

25 He overturned those cities, the whole plain, all the people who lived in the cities, and everything that grew on the ground. 26 But Lot's wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. 27 Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the LORD. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain. He saw smoke rising from the land like the smoke from a kiln. 29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham. He sent Lot away from the middle of the overturning, when he overturned the cities where Lot had lived. 30 Lot went up from Zoar and lived in the mountains with his two daughters, because he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31 The older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to come to us, as is the way of all the earth. 32 Come, let us get our father to drink wine. Then we will sleep with him and keep his family line alive through our father."

33 So they got their father to drink wine that night. The older daughter went in and slept with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she got up. 34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Look, I slept with my father last night. Let us get him to drink wine again tonight. Then you go in and sleep with him, and we will keep our father's family line alive." 35 So they got their father to drink wine that night too. The younger daughter got up and slept with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she got up. 36 So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38 The younger daughter also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.