1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening while Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. Lot saw them, got up to meet them, and bowed with his face to the ground.
2 He said, "Look, my lords, please turn aside to your servant's house; stay the night and wash your feet, and then you can rise early and go your way." "No," they said, "we will spend the night in the square."
3 But he urged them so insistently that they turned aside to him and came into his house. He prepared a meal for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4 Before they had lain down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, young and old, the whole people from every end.
5 They called out to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we may know them."
6 Lot went out to them at the doorway, shutting the door behind him,
7 and said, "Please, my brothers, do not do this evil.
8 Listen, I have two daughters who have never known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you do with them as you see fit; only to these men do nothing, since for this reason they came under the shadow of my roof."
9 But they said, "Get out of the way!" and they said, "This fellow came here as a foreigner, and he must play the judge! Now we will treat you worse than them." They pushed hard against the man Lot and came close to breaking down the door.
10 But the men inside put out their hands, pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.
11 And the men at the doorway of the house they struck with blindness, from the least to the greatest, so that they grew weary of looking for the doorway.
12 The men said to Lot, "Who else do you have here? A son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, whoever you have in the city, take them out of this place,
13 for we are destroying this place, since the outcry over them has grown great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it."
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were taking his daughters, and said, "Up! Get out of this place, for the LORD is destroying the city." But in the eyes of his sons-in-law he was like someone joking.
15 As dawn was breaking, the angels pressed Lot: "Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city."
16 When he delayed, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of his two daughters, because the LORD had compassion on him; they brought him out and left him outside the city.
17 As they were bringing them out, he said, "Flee for your life! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere in the whole plain. Flee to the mountains, or you will be swept away."
18 Lot said to them, "Not so, please, my Lord!
19 Look, your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great steadfast love to me by keeping my soul alive; but I cannot flee to the mountains, or the evil will catch up with me and I will die.
20 Look, this city is close enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee there, please (is it not small?), and my soul will live."
21 He said to him, "Very well, I grant you this request too: I will not overturn the city you speak of.
22 Hurry, flee there, for I can do nothing till you get there." That is why the city was named Zoar.
23 The sun had come up over the land as Lot entered Zoar.
24 And the LORD rained down brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD out of heaven.
25 He overturned those cities and the whole plain, with all who lived in the cities and the growth of the ground.
26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Early in the morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
28 He looked down over Sodom and Gomorrah and over all the land of the plain, and he saw smoke rising from the land like the smoke of a kiln.
29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and he sent Lot out from the midst of the upheaval as he overturned the cities where Lot had lived.
30 Lot went up from Zoar and lived in the mountains with his two daughters, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar; he and his two daughters lived in a cave.
31 The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to come in to us, as is the way of all the earth.
32 Come, let us get our father to drink wine and lie with him, so that we may keep seed alive through our father."
33 That night they gave their father wine to drink, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; he was not aware of her lying down or of her getting up.
34 On the next day the firstborn said to the younger, "Look, last night I lay with my father. Let us get him to drink wine tonight as well; then you go in and lie with him, so we may keep seed alive through our father."
35 That night too they gave their father wine to drink, and the younger got up and lay with him; he was not aware of her lying down or of her getting up.
36 So both of Lot's daughters conceived by their father.
37 The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab; he is the father of Moab to this day.
38 The younger, too, gave birth to a son and named him Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day.