Chapter 19

  The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth,  

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  and he said, 'See now, my lords, please turn aside into your servant's house, stay all night, wash your feet, and you will rise up early, and go on your way.' They said, 'No, but we will stay in the street all night.'  

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  He urged them greatly, and they came in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.  

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  But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.  

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  They called to Lot, and said to him, 'Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may have sex with them.'  

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  Lot went out to them to the door, and shut the door after him.  

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  He said, 'Please, my brothers, don't act so wickedly.  

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  See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and do you to them as is good in your eyes. Only don't do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.'  

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  They said, 'Stand back!' They said, 'This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he appoints himself a judge. Now will we deal worse with you, than with them!' They pressed hard on the man, even Lot, and drew near to break the door.  

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  But the men put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.  

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  They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.  

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  The men said to Lot, 'Do you have you anybody else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whoever you have in the city, bring them out of the place:  

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  for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is grown great before Yahweh. Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.'  

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  Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who married his daughters, and said, 'Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city.' But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.  

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  When the morning arose, then the angels hurried Lot, saying, 'Arise, take your wife, and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the iniquity of the city.'  

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  But he lingered; and the men laid hold on his hand, and on the hand of his wife, and on the hand of his two daughters, Yahweh being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city.  

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  It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, 'Escape for your life! Don't look behind you, neither stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed!'  

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  Lot said to them, 'Oh, not so, my lord.  

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  See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your lovingkindness, which you have showed to me in saving my life. I can't escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die.  

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  See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn't it a little one?), and my soul will live.'  

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  He said to him, 'Behold, I have accepted you concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.  

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  Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there.' Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.  

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  The sun was risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.  

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  Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.  

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  He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.  

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  But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.  

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  Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahweh.  

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  He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.  

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  It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.  

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  Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.  

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  The firstborn said to the younger, 'Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth.  

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  Come, let's make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed.'  

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  They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose.  

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  It came to pass on the next day, that the firstborn said to the younger, 'Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine again, tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father's seed.'  

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  They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger arose, and lay with him. He didn't know when she lay down, nor when she arose.  

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  Thus both of Lot's daughters were with child by their father.  

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  The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. The same is the father of the Moabites to this day.  

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  The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi. The same is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.  

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