The destruction of Sodom
1 When the two angels reached Sodom in the evening, Lot was sitting at the gate of the town. As soon as he saw them, he rose to meet them, bowed with his face to the ground,
2 and said, “My lords, I pray you come to your servant’s house to stay the night. Wash your feet, and then in the morning you may rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No, we will spend the night in the square.”
3 But so strongly did he insist that they went with him to his house; there he prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast. This they ate.
4 They had not yet gone to bed when men from the town surrounded the house; they were the men of So dom, young and old, the entire population.
5 They called Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who arrived here tonight? Send them out so that we may have sex with them.”
6 Lot went out to meet them, shut the door behind him and said,
7 “I beg you, my brothers, don’t do such a wicked thing.
8 I have two daughters who are still virgins; let me bring them out to you; you may do with them as you please, but don’t do anything to these men, for they have come to shelter under my roof.”
9 But they replied, “Get out of the way! This fellow is a foreigner and he wants to play the judge! Now we will do worse with you than with them.” They pressed hard against Lot and drew near in order to break the door.
10 But the men inside the house stretched out their hands to bring Lot inside and then shut the door.
11 As for those at the entrance to the house, they were struck with blindness, from the smallest to the largest, so that they were unable to find the door.
12 The two men said to Lot, “Who is still here with you? Your sons-in-law? Get them out of the place: your sons, your daughters and all your people in the town. We are about to destroy this place.
13 The cry for retri bution against it is great before Yahweh who has sent us to destroy it.”
14 Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, those who were to marry his daughters, saying, “Hurry, leave, for Yahweh is about to destroy the town.” But they took what he said as a joke.
15 At daybreak the Angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and two daughters who are here, lest they perish because of the sin of the town.”
16 As he hesitated, the men took him by the hand and his wife and two daughters with him, be cause Yahweh had mercy on him. And they led him outside the town.
17 When they were outside, the men said to him, “Flee for your life and don’t look back and don’t stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountain lest you perish.”
18 But Lot replied, “My lords, your servant has found favor with you,
19 and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot flee to the mountains for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. See, there is a town near enough for me to flee to and it’s a small one.
20 Let me flee there: it is very small (that is why the town is called Zoar). So I will be safe.”
21 And the angel answered, “I grant you this favor as well by not destroying the town you speak of.
22 But flee fast for I can do nothing until you arrive there.”
23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot reached Zoar.
24 Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and Gomorrah burning sulphur out of the heavens from Yahweh, [Rev 14,10]
25 and he completely destroyed those towns and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the towns and everything that grew there.
Other legends
26 Lot’s wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Early next morning Abraham re turned to the place where he had stood be fore Yah weh.
28 He looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah and towards all the land of the valley and he saw smoke rising from the earth like the smoke from a furnace.
29 So when God destroyed the towns of the plain he remembered Abraham and made Lot escape from the catastrophe while he destroyed the cities where Lot had lived.
30 Lot went up from Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, because he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave, he and his two daughters.
31 The elder said to the younger, “Our father is old and there is not a man in the country to lie with us as is the custom all over the world.
32 Come, let us make our father drunk with wine; we shall lie with him and have the race survive through our father.”
33 So they made their father drink wine that night and the elder went to lie with her father. He knew nothing of it, neither when she lay down nor when she left.
34 The next day the elder daughter said to the younger, “Last night I lay with my father. Let us give him wine again tonight and you go and lie with him. In this way we shall continue the race through our father.”
35 Again that night they got their father to drink wine. The younger went and lay with him. He was aware of nothing, neither when she lay with him nor when she left.
36 And the two daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.
37 The elder gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He was the ancestor of the Moabites who live today.
38 The younger, also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-ammi. He is the ancestor of the Ammonites who exist to this day.
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Comments Genesis, Chapter 19
• 19.1 The salt of the Red Sea and the ruins of two cities destroyed by earthquakes: Sodom and Gomorrah—perhaps gave food for thought. We must remember that in those days people looked upon catastrophes as punishments from God and upon prosperity as a blessing from God. Such was the origin of this story which teaches us some truths:
– respect for guests who must be welcomed as angels of the Lord;
– the horror of homosexuality.
Sodom and Gomorrah will remain tragic names in sacred history, and serve as proof that we must not make fun of God’s judgments nor take them lightly. The prophets will recall this catastrophe when they threaten those who refuse to be converted (see Is 1:9; Ezk 16:49) and so will Jesus (Mt 10:15; Lk 17:29).
The present story does not fail to emphasize—in Lot’s case—that God never forgets a single one of his children, even when they are isolated in the midst of wickedness.
Lot’s answer (v. 8) seems incredible to us, but it coincides with the ideas of those distant days when women were not considered as human persons. It seemed normal to sacrifice a daughter in order to save a friend. See something si milar in Judges 19.
• 26. We should remember that these are legendary traditions of the Israelites through which they attempted to explain the origins of different peo ples and their connection with them. Since an age-old hatred separated the Isra elites from the Ammonites and the Moa bites, the present explanation was not meant to praise them.