Genesis 19
19
1-2The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening. Lot was sitting at the city gate. He saw them and got up to welcome them, bowing before them and said, “Please, my friends, come to my house and stay the night. Wash up. You can rise early and be on your way refreshed.”
They said, “No, we’ll sleep in the street.”
3But he insisted, wouldn’t take no for an answer; and they relented and went home with him. Lot fixed a hot meal for them and they ate.
4-5Before they went to bed, men from all over the city of Sodom, young and old, descended on the house from all sides and boxed them in. They yelled to Lot, “Where are the men who are staying with you for the night? Bring them out so we can have our sport with them!”
6-8Lot went out, barring the door behind him, and said, “Brothers, please, don’t be vile! Look, I have two daughters, virgins; let me bring them out; you can take your pleasure with them, but don’t touch these men—they’re my guests.”
9They said, “Get lost! You drop in from nowhere and now you’re going to tell us how to run our lives. We’ll treat you worse than them!” And they charged past Lot to break down the door.
10-11But the two men reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, locking the door. Then they struck blind the men who were trying to break down the door, both leaders and followers, leaving them groping in the dark.
12-13The two men said to Lot, “Do you have any other family here? Sons, daughters—anybody in the city? Get them out of here, and now! We’re going to destroy this place. The outcries of victims here to God are deafening; we’ve been sent to blast this place into oblivion.”
14Lot went out and warned the fiancés of his daughters, “Evacuate this place; God is about to destroy this city!” But his daughters’ would-be husbands treated it as a joke.
15At break of day, the angels pushed Lot to get going, “Hurry. Get your wife and two daughters out of here before it’s too late and you’re caught in the punishment of the city.”
16-17Lot was dragging his feet. The men grabbed Lot’s arm, and the arms of his wife and daughters—God was so merciful to them!—and dragged them to safety outside the city. When they had them outside, Lot was told, “Now run for your life! Don’t look back! Don’t stop anywhere on the plain—run for the hills or you’ll be swept away.”
18-20But Lot protested, “No, masters, you can’t mean it! I know that you’ve taken a liking to me and have done me an immense favor in saving my life, but I can’t run for the mountains—who knows what terrible thing might happen to me in the mountains and leave me for dead. Look over there—that town is close enough to get to. It’s a small town, hardly anything to it. Let me escape there and save my life—it’s a mere wide place in the road.”
21-22“All right, Lot. If you insist. I’ll let you have your way. And I won’t stamp out the town you’ve spotted. But hurry up. Run for it! I can’t do anything until you get there.” That’s why the town was called Zoar, that is, Smalltown.
23The sun was high in the sky when Lot arrived at Zoar.
24-25Then God rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah—a river of lava from God out of the sky!—and destroyed these cities and the entire plain and everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew from the ground.
26But Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.
27-28Abraham got up early the next morning and went to the place he had so recently stood with God. He looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah, surveying the whole plain. All he could see was smoke belching from the Earth, like smoke from a furnace.
29And that’s the story: When God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham and first got Lot out of there before he blasted those cities off the face of the Earth.
30Lot left Zoar and went into the mountains to live with his two daughters; he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his daughters.
31-32One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is getting old and there’s not a man left in the country by whom we can get pregnant. Let’s get our father drunk with wine and lie with him. We’ll get children through our father—it’s our only chance to keep our family alive.”
33-35They got their father drunk with wine that very night. The older daughter went and lay with him. He was oblivious, knowing nothing of what she did. The next morning the older said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Tonight, it’s your turn. We’ll get him drunk again and then you sleep with him. We’ll both get a child through our father and keep our family alive.” So that night they got their father drunk again and the younger went in and slept with him. Again he was oblivious, knowing nothing of what she did.
36-38Both daughters became pregnant by their father, Lot. The older daughter had a son and named him Moab, the ancestor of the present-day Moabites. The younger daughter had a son and named him Ben-Ammi, the ancestor of the present-day Ammonites.
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Genesis 19: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Genesis 19
19
Sodom and Gomorrah
1Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, while Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground.
2Then he said, “Here, please my lords, please 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 open plaza.”
3But he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and they came into his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked matzot , and they ate.
4They had not yet lain down when the men of the city (the men of Sodom) surrounded the house—from youth to elderly, all the people without exception.
5And they called out 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 relations with them!”
6But Lot went out to them at the doorway and shut the door behind him,
7and said, “Please, my brothers, don’t act wickedly.
8Look, I have two daughters who haven’t been intimate with a man. Please let me bring them out to you—do to them whatever is good in your eyes! However, do nothing to these men—since they have come under the protection of my roof.”
9“Get out of the way!” they said, and they said, “This one came as an outsider and dares to judge! Now we’ll treat you worse than them!” So they strongly pressed against the man, Lot, and moved in close to break the door down.
10But the men reached out their hands, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.
11Then they struck the men at the doorway of the house with blindness—from youth to elderly—so that they gave up trying to find the doorway.
12Then the men said to Lot, “Who else related to you is still here? A son-in-law, your sons and your daughters, whoever else is related to you in the city—bring them out of the place!
13For we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before Adonai that Adonai has sent us to destroy it.”
14So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were going to marry his daughters, “Get up!” he said, “Get out of this place! For Adonai is about to destroy the city!” But in the eyes of his sons-in-law, he was like a joker.
15So when morning dawned the angels rushed Lot, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be swept away with the city’s iniquity!”
16But he hesitated. So the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand and his two daughters’ hands—because of Adonai’s compassion for him—and they brought him out and left him outside the city.
17When they brought them outside, one said, “Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stop anywhere in the surrounding area! Escape to the hills, or else you’ll be swept away!”
18But Lot said to them, “No, my Lord, please!
19Look, please, your servant has found favor in Your eyes and You have magnified Your merciful loyalty, which You have shown me by letting me live. But I can’t escape to the hill country—for the disaster will overtake me and I’ll die!
20Look, please, this city is close enough to flee there, and it’s little. Please let me escape there. Isn’t it small? And let me live!”
21So He said to him, “Behold, I will grant your request concerning this matter too—not to demolish the city of which you have spoken.
22Hurry! Flee to safety there, because I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” (This is why the town is named Zoar.)
23The moment the sun rose upon the land, Lot entered Zoar,
24and Adonai rained sulfur and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah from Adonai out of the sky.
25So He demolished these cities and the whole surrounding area, all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the ground.
26But his wife looked behind him and she turned into a pillar of salt.
27Now Abraham rose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Adonai,
28and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward the entire land of the surrounding area, and saw, behold, the smoke of the land ascended like smoke from a furnace.
29So it was, as God destroyed the cities of the surrounding area, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the upheaval, when He demolished the cities where Lot had dwelt.
Lot Fathers Moab and Ammon
30Then Lot went up from Zoar and dwelled on the mountain, his two daughters with him, because he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. So he lived in a cave—he and his two daughters.
31Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to come to us as is the custom of the whole land.
32Come on! Let’s make our father drink wine so that we can lie with him and keep the seed from our father alive.
33So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn came and lay down with her father. Yet he did not know that she lay down and got up.
34On the following day, the firstborn said to the younger, “See! I slept with my father last night. Let’s make him drink wine tonight as well. Come on! Sleep with him so that we’ll keep the seed from our father alive.”
35So they made their father drink wine that night as well, and the younger got up and lay down with him and he did not know that she lay down and got up.
36So Lot’s two daughters become pregnant by their father.
37Then the firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab: he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day.
38The younger also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-Ammi: he is the ancestor of the sons of Ammon to this day.
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