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.
* * *
Currently Selected:
Genesis 19: MSG
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
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
1And two of the messengers come towards Sodom at even, and Lot is sitting at the gate of Sodom, and Lot seeth, and riseth to meet them, and boweth himself — face to the earth,
2and he saith, ‘Lo, I pray you, my lords, turn aside, I pray you, unto the house of your servant, and lodge, and wash your feet — then ye have risen early and gone on your way;’ and they say, ‘Nay, but in the broad place we do lodge.’
3And he presseth on them greatly, and they turn aside unto him, and come in unto his house; and he maketh for them a banquet, and hath baked unleavened things; and they do eat.
4Before they lie down, the men of the city — men of Sodom — have come round about against the house, from young even unto aged, all the people from the extremity;
5and they call unto Lot and say to him, ‘Where [are] the men who have come in unto thee to-night? bring them out unto us, and we know them.’
6And Lot goeth out unto them, to the opening, and the door hath shut behind him,
7and saith, ‘Do not, I pray you, my brethren, do evil;
8lo, I pray you, I have two daughters, who have not known any one; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do to them as [is] good in your eyes; only to these men do not anything, for therefore have they come in within the shadow of my roof.’
9And they say, ‘Come nigh hither;’ they say also, ‘This one hath come in to sojourn, and he certainly judgeth! now, we do evil to thee more than [to] them;’ and they press against the man, against Lot greatly, and come nigh to break the door.
10And the men put forth their hand, and bring in Lot unto them, into the house, and have shut the door;
11and the men who [are] at the opening of the house they have smitten with blindness, from small even unto great, and they weary themselves to find the opening.
12And the men say unto Lot, ‘Whom hast thou here still? son-in-law, thy sons also, and thy daughters, and all whom thou hast in the city, bring out from this place;
13for we are destroying this place, for their cry hath been great [before] the face of Jehovah, and Jehovah doth send us to destroy it.’
14And Lot goeth out, and speaketh unto his sons-in-law, those taking his daughters, and saith, ‘Rise, go out from this place, for Jehovah is destroying the city;’ and he is as [one] mocking in the eyes of his sons-in-law.
15And when the dawn hath ascended, then the messengers press upon Lot, saying, ‘Rise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters who are found present, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.’
16And he lingereth, and the men lay hold on his hand, and on the hand of his wife, and on the hand of his two daughters, through the mercy of Jehovah unto him, and they bring him out, and cause him to rest without the city.
17And it cometh to pass when he hath brought them out without, that he saith, ‘Escape for thy life; look not expectingly behind thee, nor stand thou in all the circuit; to the mountain escape, lest thou be consumed.’
18And Lot saith unto them, ‘Not [so], I pray thee, my lord;
19lo, I pray thee, thy servant hath found grace in thine eyes, and thou dost make great thy kindness which thou hast done with me by saving my life, and I am unable to escape to the mountain, lest the evil cleave [to] me, and I have died;
20lo, I pray thee, this city [is] near to flee thither, and it [is] little; let me escape, I pray thee, thither, (is it not little?) and my soul doth live.’
21And he saith unto him, ‘Lo, I have accepted thy face also for this thing, without overthrowing the city [for] which thou hast spoken;
22haste, escape thither, for I am not able to do anything till thine entering thither;’ therefore hath he calleth the name of the city Zoar.
23The sun hath gone out on the earth, and Lot hath entered into Zoar,
24and Jehovah hath rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah, from the heavens;
25and He overthroweth these cities, and all the circuit, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which is shooting up from the ground.
26And his wife looketh expectingly from behind him, and she is — a pillar of salt!
27And Abraham riseth early in the morning, unto the place where he hath stood [before] the face of Jehovah;
28and he looketh on the face of Sodom and Gomorrah, and on all the face of the land of the circuit, and seeth, and lo, the smoke of the land went up as smoke of the furnace.
29And it cometh to pass, in God's destroying the cities of the circuit, that God remembereth Abraham, and sendeth Lot out of the midst of the overthrow in the overthrowing of the cities in which Lot dwelt.
30And Lot goeth up out of Zoar, and dwelleth in the mountain, and his two daughters with him, for he hath been afraid of dwelling in Zoar, and he dwelleth in a cave, he and his two daughters.
31And the first-born saith unto the younger, ‘Our father [is] old, and a man there is not in the earth to come in unto us, as [is] the way of all the earth;
32come, we cause our father to drink wine, and lie with him, and preserve from our father — a seed.’
33And they cause their father to drink wine on that night; and the first-born goeth in, and lieth with her father, and he hath not known in her lying down, or in her rising up.
34And it cometh to pass, on the morrow, that the first-born saith unto the younger, ‘Lo, I have lain yesterday-night with my father: we cause him to drink wine also to-night, and go thou in, lie with him, and we preserve from our father — a seed.’
35And they cause their father to drink wine on that night also, and the younger riseth and lieth with him, and he hath not known in her lying down, or in her rising up.
36And the two daughters of Lot conceive from their father,
37and the first-born beareth a son, and calleth his name Moab; he [is] father of Moab unto this day;
38as to the younger, she also hath born a son, and calleth his name Ben-Ammi: he [is] father of the Beni-Ammon unto this day.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society