Genesis 18-19

Living Bible

18 The Lord appeared again to Abraham while he was living in the oak grove at Mamre. This is the way it happened: One hot summer afternoon as he was sitting in the opening of his tent, ² he suddenly noticed three men coming toward him. He sprang up and ran to meet them and welcomed them.

^3-4 “Sirs,” he said, “please don’t go any farther. Stop awhile and rest here in the shade of this tree while I get water to refresh your feet, ⁵ and a bite to eat to strengthen you. Do stay awhile before continuing your journey.”

“All right,” they said, “do as you have said.”

⁶ Then Abraham ran back to the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Mix up some pancakes!^[a] Use your best flour, and make enough for the three of them!” ⁷ Then he ran out to the herd and selected a fat calf and told a servant to hurry and butcher it. ⁸ Soon, taking them cheese and milk and the roast veal, he set it before the men and stood beneath the trees beside them as they ate.

⁹ “Where is Sarah, your wife?” they asked him.

“In the tent,” Abraham replied.

¹⁰ Then the Lord said, “Next year^[b] I will give you and Sarah a son!” (Sarah was listening from the tent door behind him.) ¹¹ Now Abraham and Sarah were both very old, and Sarah was long since past the time when she could have a baby.

¹² So Sarah laughed silently. “A woman my age have a baby?” she scoffed to herself. “And with a husband as old as mine?”

¹³ Then God said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’ ¹⁴ Is anything too hard for God? Next year, just as I told you, I will certainly see to it that Sarah has a son.”

¹⁵ But Sarah denied it. “I didn’t laugh,” she lied, for she was afraid.

¹⁶ Then the men stood up from their meal and started on toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them part of the way.

¹⁷ “Should I hide my plan from Abraham?” God asked. ¹⁸ “For Abraham shall become a mighty nation, and he will be a source of blessing for all the nations of the earth. ¹⁹ And I have picked him out to have godly descendants and a godly household—men who are just and good—so that I can do for him all I have promised.”

²⁰ So the Lord told Abraham, “I have heard that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are utterly evil, and that everything they do is wicked. ²¹ I am going down to see whether these reports are true or not. Then I will know.”

^22-23 So the other two went on toward Sodom, but the Lord remained with Abraham a while. Then Abraham approached him and said, “Will you kill good and bad alike? ²⁴ Suppose you find fifty godly people there within the city—will you destroy it, and not spare it for their sakes? ²⁵ That wouldn’t be right! Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, to kill the godly with the wicked! Why, you would be treating godly and wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth be fair?”

²⁶ And God replied, “If I find fifty godly people there, I will spare the entire city for their sake.”

²⁷ Then Abraham spoke again. “Since I have begun, let me go on and speak further to the Lord, though I am but dust and ashes. ²⁸ Suppose there are only forty-five? Will you destroy the city for lack of five?”

And God said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five.”

²⁹ Then Abraham went further with his request. “Suppose there are only forty?”

And God replied, “I won’t destroy it if there are forty.”

³⁰ “Please don’t be angry,” Abraham pleaded. “Let me speak: suppose only thirty are found there?”

And God replied, “I won’t do it if there are thirty there.”

³¹ Then Abraham said, “Since I have dared to speak to God, let me continue—suppose there are only twenty?”

And God said, “Then I won’t destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”

³² Finally, Abraham said, “Oh, let not the Lord be angry; I will speak but this once more! Suppose only ten are found?”

And God said, “Then, for the sake of the ten, I won’t destroy it.”

³³ And the Lord went on his way when he had finished his conversation with Abraham. And Abraham returned to his tent.

19 That evening the two angels came to the entrance of the city of Sodom, and Lot was sitting there as they arrived. When he saw them he stood up to meet them, and welcomed them.

² “Sirs,” he said, “come to my home as my guests for the night; you can get up as early as you like and be on your way again.”

“Oh, no thanks,” they said, “we’ll just stretch out here along the street.”

³ But he was very urgent, until at last they went home with him, and he set a great feast before them, complete with freshly baked unleavened bread. After the meal, ⁴ as they were preparing to retire for the night, the men of the city—yes, Sodomites, young and old from all over the city—surrounded the house ⁵ and shouted to Lot, “Bring out those men to us so we can rape them.”

⁶ Lot stepped outside to talk to them, shutting the door behind him. ⁷ “Please, fellows,” he begged, “don’t do such a wicked thing. ⁸ Look—I have two virgin daughters, and I’ll surrender them to you to do with as you wish. But leave these men alone, for they are under my protection.”

⁹ “Stand back,” they yelled. “Who do you think you are? We let this fellow settle among us and now he tries to tell us what to do! We’ll deal with you far worse than with those other men.” And they lunged at Lot and began breaking down the door.

¹⁰ But the two men reached out and pulled Lot in and bolted the door ¹¹ and temporarily blinded the men of Sodom so that they couldn’t find the door.

¹² “What relatives do you have here in the city?” the men asked. “Get them out of this place—sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else. ¹³ For we will destroy the city completely. The stench of the place has reached to heaven and God has sent us to destroy it.”

¹⁴ So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés, “Quick, get out of the city, for the Lord is going to destroy it.” But the young men looked at him as though he had lost his senses.

¹⁵ At dawn the next morning the angels became urgent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot, “take your wife and your two daughters who are here and get out while you can, or you will be caught in the destruction of the city.”

¹⁶ When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety, outside the city, for the Lord was merciful.

¹⁷ “Flee for your lives,” the angels told him. “And don’t look back. Escape to the mountains. Don’t stay down here on the plain or you will die.”

^18-20 “Oh no, sirs, please,” Lot begged, “since you’ve been so kind to me and saved my life, and you’ve granted me such mercy, let me flee to that little village over there instead of into the mountains, for I fear disaster in the mountains. See, the village is close by and it is just a small one. Please, please, let me go there instead. Don’t you see how small it is? And my life will be saved.”

²¹ “All right,” the angel said, “I accept your proposition and won’t destroy that little city. ²² But hurry! For I can do nothing until you are there.” (From that time on that village was named Zoar, meaning “Little City.”)

²³ The sun was rising as Lot reached the village. ²⁴ Then the Lord rained down fire and flaming tar from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, ²⁵ and utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, eliminating all life—people, plants, and animals alike. ²⁶ But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following along behind him and became a pillar of salt.

²⁷ That morning Abraham was up early and hurried out to the place where he had stood before the Lord. ²⁸ He looked out across the plain to Sodom and Gomorrah and saw columns of smoke and fumes, as from a furnace, rising from the cities there. ²⁹ So God heeded Abraham’s plea and kept Lot safe, removing him from the maelstrom of death that engulfed the cities.

³⁰ Afterwards Lot left Zoar, fearful of the people there, and went to live in a cave in the mountains with his two daughters. ³¹ One day the older girl said to her sister, “There isn’t a man anywhere in this entire area that our father would let us marry. And our father will soon be too old for having children. ³² Come, let’s fill him with wine and then we will sleep with him, so that our clan will not come to an end.” ³³ So they got him drunk that night, and the older girl went in and had sexual intercourse with her father; but he was unaware of her lying down or getting up again.

³⁴ The next morning she said to her younger sister, “I slept with my father last night. Let’s fill him with wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him, so that our family line will continue.” ³⁵ So they got him drunk again that night, and the younger girl went in and lay with him, and, as before, he didn’t know that anyone was there. ³⁶ And so it was that both girls became pregnant from their father. ³⁷ The older girl’s baby was named Moab; he became the ancestor of the nation of the Moabites. ³⁸ The name of the younger girl’s baby was Benammi; he became the ancestor of the nation of the Ammonites.