Urgent Mercy and Righteous Judgment: The Rescue of Lot and the Fall of Sodom

¹² Then the two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—a son-in-law, your sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here,

¹³ because we are about to destroy this place. For the outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that He has sent us to destroy it.”

¹⁴ So Lot went out and spoke to the sons-in-law who were pledged in marriage to his daughters. “Get up,” he said. “Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

¹⁵ At daybreak the angels hurried Lot along, saying, “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 But when Lot hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters. And they led them safely out of the city, because of the LORD’s compassion for them.

¹⁷ As soon as the men had brought them out, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”

¹⁸ But Lot replied, “No, my lords, please!

¹⁹ Your servant has indeed found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness by sparing my life. But I cannot run to the mountains; the disaster will overtake me, and I will die.

²⁰ Look, there is a town nearby where I can flee, and it is a small place. Please let me flee there—is it not a small place? Then my life will be saved.”

²¹ “Very well,” he answered, “I will grant this request as well, and will not demolish the town you indicate.

²² Hurry! Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you reach it.” That is why the town was called Zoar.

²³ And by the time the sun had risen over the land, Lot had reached Zoar.

²⁴ Then the LORD rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.

²⁵ Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground.

²⁶ But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

²⁷ Early the next morning, Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD.

²⁸ He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw the smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace.

²⁹ So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham, and He brought Lot out of the catastrophe that destroyed the cities where he had lived.