The Three Visitors

18 Later, the Lord again appeared to Abraham near the oak trees of Mamre. It was the hottest part of the day, and Abraham was sitting at the door of his tent. ² He looked up and saw three men standing in front of him. When he saw the men, he ran to them and bowed before them. ³ Abraham said, “Sirs,^[a] please stay a while with me, your servant. ⁴ I will bring some water to wash your feet. You can rest under the trees. ⁵ I will get some food for you, and you can eat as much as you want. Then you can continue your journey.”

The three men said, “Do as you wish.”

⁶ Abraham hurried to the tent. He said to Sarah, “Quickly, prepare enough flour for three loaves of bread.” ⁷ Then Abraham ran to his cattle. He took his best young calf and gave it to the servant there. He told the servant to quickly kill the calf and prepare it for food. ⁸ Abraham brought the meat and some milk and cheese and set them down in front of the three men. Then he stood near the men, ready to serve them while they sat under the tree and ate.

⁹ Then the men said to Abraham, “Where is your wife Sarah?”

Abraham said, “She is there, in the tent.”

¹⁰ Then one of them said, “I will come again in the spring. At that time your wife Sarah will have a son.”

Sarah was listening in the tent and heard these things. ¹¹ Abraham and Sarah were very old. Sarah was past the right age for women to have children. ¹² So she laughed to herself and said, “I am old, and my husband is old. I am too old to have a baby.”

¹³ Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Sarah laughed and said she was too old to have a baby. ¹⁴ But is anything too hard for the Lord? I will come again in the spring, just as I said I would, and your wife Sarah will have a son.”

¹⁵ Sarah said, “I didn’t laugh!” (She said this because she was afraid.)

Then the Lord said, “No, I know that is not true. You did laugh!”

¹⁶ Then the men got up to leave. They looked toward Sodom and began walking in that direction. Abraham walked with them to send them on their way.

Abraham’s Bargain With God

¹⁷ The Lord said to himself, “Should I tell Abraham what I am going to do now? ¹⁸ Abraham will become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations on earth will be blessed because of him. ¹⁹ I have made a special agreement with him. I did this so that he would command his children and his descendants to live the way the Lord wants them to. I did this so that they would live right and be fair. Then I, the Lord, can give him what I promised.”

²⁰ Then the Lord said, “I have heard many times that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are very evil. ²¹ I will go and see if they are as bad as I have heard. Then I will know for sure.”

²² So the men turned and started walking toward Sodom while Abraham stood there before the Lord. ²³ Then Abraham approached him and asked, “Will you destroy the good people while you are destroying those who are evil? ²⁴ What if there are fifty good people in that city? Will you still destroy it? Surely you will save the city for the fifty good people living there. ²⁵ Surely you would not destroy the city. You would not destroy fifty good people to kill those who are evil. If that happened, those who are good would be the same as those who are evil—both would be punished. As the judge of the whole world, surely you would do the right thing!”

²⁶ Then the Lord said, “If I find fifty good people in the city of Sodom, I will save the whole city.”

²⁷ Then Abraham said, “Compared to you, Lord, I am only dust and ashes. But let me bother you again and ask you this question. ²⁸ What if there are five less than fifty? Will you destroy a whole city because of just five people?”

The Lord said, “If I find forty-five good people there, I will not destroy the city.”

²⁹ Abraham spoke again. He said, “And if you find only forty good people there, will you destroy the city?”

The Lord said, “If I find forty good people, I will not destroy the city.”

³⁰ Then Abraham said, “Lord, please don’t be angry with me, but let me ask you this. If only thirty good people are in the city, will you destroy it?”

The Lord said, “If I find thirty good people there, I will not destroy the city.”

³¹ Then Abraham said, “Lord, may I bother you again and ask, what if there are twenty good people?”

The Lord answered, “If I find twenty good people, I will not destroy the city.”

³² Then Abraham said, “Lord, please don’t be angry with me, but let me bother you this one last time. If you find ten good people there, what will you do?”

The Lord said, “If I find ten good people in the city, I will not destroy it.”

³³ The Lord finished speaking to Abraham and left. Then Abraham went back home.

Lot’s Visitors

19 That evening the two angels came to the city of Sodom. Lot was sitting near the city gates and saw them. He got up and went to them. He bowed to show respect and said, “Sirs, please come to my house, and I will serve you. There you can wash your feet and stay the night. Then tomorrow you can continue your journey.”

The angels answered, “No, we will stay the night in the city square.”

³ But Lot continued to ask them to come to his house, so they agreed and went with him. Lot gave them something to drink. He baked some bread for them, and they ate it.

⁴ That evening, just before bedtime, men from every part of town came to Lot’s house. They stood around the house and called to Lot. They said, ⁵ “Where are the two men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us. We want to have sex with them.”

⁶ Lot went outside and closed the door behind him. ⁷ He said to the men, “No, my friends, I beg you, please don’t do this evil thing! ⁸ Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man before. I will give my daughters to you. You can do anything you want with them. But please don’t do anything to these men. They have come to my house, and I must protect them.”^[b]

⁹ The men surrounding the house answered, “Get out of our way!” They said to themselves, “This man Lot came to our city as a visitor. Now he wants to tell us how we should live!” Then the men said to Lot, “We will do worse things to you than to them.” So the men started moving closer and closer to Lot. They were about to break down the door.

¹⁰ But the two men staying with Lot opened the door, pulled him back inside the house, and closed the door. ¹¹ Then they did something to the men outside the door—they caused all these evil men, young and old, to become blind. So the men trying to get in the house could not find the door.

The Escape From Sodom

¹² The two men said to Lot, “Are there any other people from your family living in this city? Do you have any sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or any other people from your family here? If so, you should tell them to leave now. ¹³ We are going to destroy this city. The Lord heard how evil this city is, so he sent us to destroy it.”

¹⁴ So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, the men who had married his other daughters. He said, “Hurry and leave this city! The Lord will soon destroy it!” But they thought he was joking.

¹⁵ The next morning at dawn, the angels were trying to make Lot hurry. They said, “This city will be punished, so take your wife and your two daughters who are still with you and leave this place. Then you will not be destroyed with the city.”

¹⁶ When Lot did not move fast enough, the two men grabbed his hand. They also took the hands of his wife and his two daughters. The two men led Lot and his family safely out of the city. The Lord was kind to Lot and his family. ¹⁷ So after the two men brought Lot and his family out of the city, one of the men said, “Now run to save your life! Don’t look back at the city, and don’t stop anywhere in the valley. Run until you are in the mountains. If you stop, you will be destroyed with the city!”

¹⁸ But Lot said to the two men, “Sirs, please don’t force me to run so far! ¹⁹ You have been very kind to me, your servant. You have been very kind to save me, but I cannot run all the way to the mountains. What if I am too slow and something happens? I will be killed! ²⁰ Look, there is a very small town near here. Let me run to that town. I can run there and be safe.”

²¹ The angel said to Lot, “Very well, I’ll let you do that. I will not destroy that town. ²² But run there quickly. I cannot destroy Sodom until you are safely in that town.” (That town is named Zoar,^[c] because it is a small town.)

Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed

²³ Lot was entering the town as the sun came up, ²⁴ and the Lord began to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He caused fire and burning sulfur to fall from the sky. ²⁵ He destroyed the whole valley—all the cities, the people living in the cities, and all the plants in the valley.

²⁶ Lot’s wife was following behind him and looked back at the city. When she did, she became a block of salt.

²⁷ Early the next morning, Abraham got up and went to the place where he stood before the Lord. ²⁸ Abraham looked down into the valley toward the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He saw clouds of smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

²⁹ God destroyed the cities in the valley, but he remembered what Abraham had said. So God sent Lot away from those cities before destroying them.

Lot and His Daughters

³⁰ Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, so he and his two daughters went to live in the mountains in a cave. ³¹ One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Everywhere on the earth, men and women marry and have a family. But our father is old, and there are no men around here to give us children. ³² So let’s get our father drunk with wine. Then we can have sex with him. That way we can use our father to keep our family alive!”

³³ That night the two girls went to their father and got him drunk with wine. Then the older daughter went and had sexual relations with him. He did not even know when she came to bed or when she got up.

³⁴ The next day the older daughter said to the younger daughter, “Last night I went to bed with my father. Let’s get him drunk with wine again tonight. Then you can go and have sex with him. In this way we can use our father to have children, and our family will not come to an end.” ³⁵ So that night the two girls got their father drunk with wine. Then the younger daughter went and had sexual relations with him. Again, Lot did not know when she came to bed or when she got up.

³⁶ Both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant. Their father was the father of their babies. ³⁷ The older daughter gave birth to a son. She named him Moab.^[d] Moab is the ancestor of all the Moabites living today. ³⁸ The younger daughter also gave birth to a son. She named him Ben-Ammi.^[e] Ben-Ammi is the ancestor of all the Ammonites living today.