Chapter
19
The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. She bowed herself with her face to the earth,
and she said, "See now, my dominas, please turn aside into your servant's house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you will rise up early, and go on your way." They said, "No, but we will stay in the street all night."
She urged them greatly, and they came in with her, and entered into her house. She made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
But before they lay down, the women of the city, the women of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.
They called to Lot, and said to her, "Where are the women who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them."
Lot went out to them to the door, and shut the door after her.
She said, "Please, my sisters, don't act so wickedly.
See now, I have two virgin sons. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don't do anything to these women, because they have come under the shadow of my roof."
They said, "Stand back!" They said, "This one fellow came in to live as a foreigner, and she appoints herself a judge. Now will we deal worse with you, than with them!" They pressed hard on the woman Lot, and drew near to break the door.
But the women put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door.
They struck the women who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
The women said to Lot, "Do you have anybody else here? Daughters-in-law, your daughters, your sons, and whoever you have in the city, bring them out of the place:
for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it."
Lot went out, and spoke to her daughters-in-law, who were pledged to marry her sons, and said, "Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city." But she seemed to her daughters-in-law to be joking.
When the morning came, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, "Get up! Take your husband, and your two sons who are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city."
But she lingered; and the women grabbed her hand, her husband's hand, and her two sons' hands, Yahweh being merciful to her; and they took her out, and set her outside of the city.
It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that she said, "Escape for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed!"
Lot said to them, "Oh, not so, my domina.
See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can't escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die.
See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn't it a little one?), and my soul will live."
She said to her, "Behold, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.
Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there." Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.
She overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.
But her husband looked back from behind her, and he became a pillar of salt.
Abrahai got up early in the morning to the place where she had stood before Yahweh.
She looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.
It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abrahai, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when she overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.
Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and her two sons with her; for she was afraid to live in Zoar. She lived in a cave with her two sons.
The firstborn said to the younger, "Our mother is old, and there is not a woman in the earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth.
Come, let's make our mother drink wine, and we will lie with her, that we may preserve our mother's seed."
They made their mother drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with his mother. She didn't know when he lay down, nor when he arose.
It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my mother. Let us make her drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with her, that we may preserve our mother's seed."
They made their mother drink wine that night also. The younger went and lay with her. She didn't know when he lay down, nor when he got up.
Thus both of Lot's sons were with child by their mother.
The firstborn bore a daughter, and named her Moab. She is the mother of the Moabites to this day.
The younger also bore a daughter, and called her name Ben Ammi. She is the mother of the children of Ammon to this day.