Lot Escapes Sodom and Gomorrah

In the evening, two angels came to Sodom. Lot was sitting at the city gate. He met them, bowed low, and urged them to stay in his house instead of spending the night in the street. At first they refused, but Lot pressed them strongly, so they went with him. He prepared a feast for them with unleavened bread, and they ate.

Before they lay down, men from every part of the city surrounded the house and demanded that Lot bring out his visitors so they could have sex with them. Lot went outside, shut the door behind him, and called their plan wicked. He then made a terrible offer concerning his daughters, which the passage reports but does not approve. The crowd turned on Lot and came near to break the door.

The visitors reached out, pulled Lot back inside, and shut the door. They struck the men outside with blindness so they could not find the entrance. Then they told Lot to gather anyone he had in the city, because they had been sent to destroy the place. Lot warned the men pledged to marry his daughters, but they thought he was joking.

At daybreak the angels hurried Lot to leave with his wife and his two daughters. When he delayed, they took hold of their hands and brought them outside the city, because the Lord was merciful to him. They were told to escape for their lives, not to look behind them, and not to stay anywhere in the plain. Lot asked to flee instead to a small nearby city, and this was granted. That city was called Zoar.

When the sun had risen and Lot came to Zoar, the Lord rained sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the sky. He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the people in the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot's wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Early that morning Abraham looked toward the plain and saw smoke rising. God destroyed those cities, yet he remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the disaster.