²¹ So He said to him, “Behold, I will grant your request concerning this matter too—not to demolish the city of which you have spoken. ²² Hurry! Flee to safety there, because I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” (This is why the town is named Zoar.)

²³ The moment the sun rose upon the land, Lot entered Zoar, ²⁴ and Adonai rained sulfur and fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah from Adonai out of the sky. ²⁵ So He demolished these cities and the whole surrounding area, all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the ground.

²⁶ But his wife looked behind him and she turned into a pillar of salt.

²⁷ Now Abraham rose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Adonai, ²⁸ and 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. ²⁹ So 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

³⁰ Then 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.

³¹ Then 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. ³² Come on! Let’s make our father drink wine so that we can lie with him and keep the seed from our father alive. ³³ So 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. ³⁴ On 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.” ³⁵ So 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. ³⁶ So Lot’s two daughters become pregnant by their father. ³⁷ Then the firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab: he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. ³⁸ The younger also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-Ammi: he is the ancestor of the sons of Ammon to this day.

Sarah Renewed

20 Then Abraham journeyed from there to the land of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was dwelling as an outsider in Gerar, ² Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” So King Abimelech of Gerar sent for and took Sarah. ³ But God came to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, “Behold, you are as good as dead, because of the woman whom you have taken—since she is a married woman.”

⁴ Now Abimelech had not come near her. So he said, “My Lord, will You slay a nation, even though innocent? ⁵ Didn’t he say to me, ‘She’s my sister’? And she herself even said, ‘He’s my brother.’ I did this with integrity of my heart and guiltlessness of my hands.”

⁶ Then God said to him in a dream, “Yes, I myself knew that you did this with integrity of your heart, so I, yes I Myself prevented you from sinning against Me. That is why I did not allow you to touch her. ⁷ So now, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet. And let him pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, know that you will surely die—you and all who are yours.”

⁸ Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all his servants and spoke all these words in their ears—and the men were very frightened. ⁹ Then Abimelech called to Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us, and how have I sinned against you, that you brought great sin upon me and my kingdom? You’ve done to me things that should not be done!” ¹⁰ Abimelech also said to Abraham, “What motivated you to do this thing?”

¹¹ Abraham said, “Because I thought, ‘There is certainly no fear of God in this place, so they’ll kill me, because of my wife.’ ¹² And besides, she really is my sister. She’s my father’s daughter, though not my mother’s daughter. Then she became my wife. ¹³ So when God made me wander away from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is your loyalty that you must show me: in every place we go, say of me, ‘He is my brother.’”

¹⁴ Then Abimelech took sheep, cattle, male slaves and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. ¹⁵ Then Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Dwell wherever it pleases you.” ¹⁶ At the same time he said to Sarah, “Look, I’ve given a thousand shekels to your brother. Look, it is compensation for everything that happened—so to everyone with you, you are vindicated.”

¹⁷ Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his female slaves so that they could bear children. ¹⁸ For Adonai had completely locked up every womb in Abimelech’s household because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

Birth of Isaac

21 Then Adonai visited Sarah just as He had said, and Adonai did for Sarah just as He had spoken. ² So Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time that God had told him. ³ Abraham named his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore for him—Isaac. ⁴ Then Abraham circumcised Isaac, his eight-day-old son, just as God had commanded him.