Genesis 19
Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was
sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them
and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he
said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and
spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the
square.”
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did
go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread
without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all
the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the
house. 5 They called to Lot, “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 outside to meet them and shut the
door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t 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 you can do what you like with
them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the
protection of my roof.”
9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This
fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll
treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved
forward to break down the door.
10 But the men inside reached out and pulled
Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck
the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so
that they could not find the door.
12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have
anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who
belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going
to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great
that he has sent us to destroy it.”
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his
sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry[a] his daughters. He
said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy
the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged
Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you
will be swept away when the city is punished.”
16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his
hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out
of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. 17 As soon as
they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look
back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will
be swept away!”
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords,[b] please! 19 Your[c] servant has found
favor in your[d] eyes, and you[e] have shown great
kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this
disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a
town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very
small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”
21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant
this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But
flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is
why the town was called Zoar.[f])
23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had
risen over the land. 24 Then the Lord rained down burning
sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 Thus
he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in
the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot’s
wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and
returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He
looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he
saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
29 So when God destroyed the cities of the
plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that
overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
Lot and His Daughters
30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and
settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two
daughters lived in a cave. 31 One day the older daughter said
to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us
children—as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let’s get our
father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line
through our father.”
33 That night they got their father to drink
wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it
when she lay down or when she got up.
34 The next day the older daughter said to
the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine
again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family
line through our father.” 35 So they got their father to drink
wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him.
Again he was not aware of it 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 had a son, and
she named him Moab[g]; he is the father of
the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son,
and she named him Ben-Ammi[h]; he is the father of
the Ammonites[i] of today.
Footnotes
- Genesis 19:14 Or were married to
- Genesis 19:18 Or No, Lord; or No, my lord
- Genesis 19:19 The Hebrew is singular.
- Genesis 19:19 The Hebrew is singular.
- Genesis 19:19 The Hebrew is singular.
- Genesis 19:22 Zoar means small.
- Genesis 19:37 Moab sounds like the Hebrew for from father.
- Genesis 19:38 Ben-Ammi means son of my father’s people.
- Genesis 19:38 Hebrew Bene-Ammon
Genesis 19:2
“’My lords,’ he said, ‘please turn aside to your servant’s house.’”
Lot offered the two men (angels) room and board. The other
men of the town just wanted to take advantage of them.
When the angels refused Lot’s hospitality, he insisted
strongly enough to convince them to stay with him. When the men of the town didn’t
get their way, they also insisted, so strongly that they threatened to break
into Lot’s house and beat him.
Both parties were persistent. Are you? If you offer to help
someone, and they refuse, do you let the matter drop or do you follow up with
another offer?
We need to give people the freedom to make their own
choices, as God does with us. But God also always extends grace to us again at
the next available opportunity. How can you extend an offer to help someone
after they’ve refused you before? How can you gently insist so that they know
you know you’re sincere in your desire to help them and not simply being
polite?
Genesis 19:14
“So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were
pledged to marry his daughters. He said, ‘Hurry and get out of this place,
because the Lord is about to destroy the city!’ But his sons-in-law thought he
was joking.”
Lot tried to warn these two men to get out of the city, but they thought he was joking. We can't be surprised when people don't take God's message seriously. They don't believe in the reality of God and His actions. They don't feel the gravity of their own sin. We do. We need to make sure that we, at least, are taking God's Word seriously.
Genesis 19:26
“But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”
Lot's wife turned back and was turned to salt. When we flee sin or a situation that God is calling us out of, we can't look back. We have to follow God wholeheartedly, full steam ahead.
What sin or situation in life is God calling you to flee from? If you don’t leave it behind, you could become stuck in place, like Lot’s wife, instead of making progress on the path God has set for you.
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