Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Genesis 19
Visitors in Sodom
The two messengers arrived in Sodom that evening. Lot was sitting at Sodom's gate. When he saw them, he stood to meet them and bowed with his face to the ground.
“Please, my lords,” he said, “turn aside to your servant's house. Spend the night and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They answered, “No, we will spend the night in the square.”
Lot urged them strongly, so they came with him into his house. He prepared a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
The Crowd at the Door
Before they lay down, the men of the city surrounded the house—the men of Sodom, young and old, from every part of the city. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out so we can have sex with them!”
Lot went outside to the doorway and shut the door behind him.
“My brothers,” he said, “please do not do this evil thing. I have two daughters who have never had relations with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you see fit. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
“Stand back!” they said. “This man came here as a stranger, and now he wants to be our judge! We will treat you worse than them.” They pressed hard against Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
The men inside reached out, pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. They struck the men at the doorway with blindness, young and old, so that they wore themselves out trying to find the entrance.
Escape from the City
The men said to Lot, “Who else do you have here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters—anyone belonging to you in the city—bring them out of this place. We are about to destroy it. The outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.”
Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters. “Get up! Leave this place!” he said. “The LORD is about to destroy the city.” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
At dawn the messengers urged Lot, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the city's punishment.”
But he hesitated. Because the LORD had compassion on him, the men seized his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of his two daughters. They brought him out and set him outside the city.
Once they had brought them outside, one said, “Run for your life! Do not look behind you or stop anywhere in the plain. Escape to the hills, or you will be swept away.”
Lot said to them, “Please, my Lord, no! Your servant has found favor with you. You have shown me great kindness by keeping me alive, but I cannot escape to the hills. The disaster might catch me, and I would die. Look, that town is close enough to flee to, and it is small. Please let me escape there—it is only a small place—and my life will be saved.”
He answered, “I grant you this request too. I will not overthrow the town you have named. Hurry! Escape there, because I can do nothing until you arrive.” That is why the town was called Zoar.
The Cities Are Overthrown
The sun had risen over the earth when Lot reached Zoar.
Then the LORD rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of the heavens. God overthrew those cities and the whole plain, all the cities' inhabitants, and everything growing from the ground.
Lot's wife looked back from behind him and became a pillar of salt.
Early that morning Abraham returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and across the whole plain. Smoke rose from the land like smoke from a furnace.
When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
Lot and His Daughters
Lot left Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his daughters lived in a cave.
The older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to have relations with us as people everywhere do. Come, let us give our father wine and lie with him, so that we can preserve descendants through our father.”
That night they gave their father wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He did not know when she lay down or when she got up.
The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I lay with our father. Let us give him wine again tonight. Then you go in and lie with him, so that we can preserve descendants through our father.”
So that night too they gave their father wine. The younger daughter rose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she got up.
Both Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father.
The older daughter bore a son and named him Moab. He is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and named him Ben-ammi. He is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.