Sodom And Gomorrah

Genesis 19

Among the wise men who sat in Sodom's gate was Lot. He saw two strangers approaching, and he greeted them with a low bow, just as Abraham had greeted these same men earlier in day. They were no other than the angels who had dined with the Lord at Abraham's tent. Lot invited them to his home to spend the night, but they said they would stay out in the streets. Now, Lot knew the wicked men of Sodom would try to harm them if they remained in the streets, so he urged them to come with him. Finally they agreed to go with Lot.

Here again the angels were treated with great kindness. Lot brought water to wash their dusty feet and prepared good things for them to eat.

Soon the news spread all over Sodom that Lot had two strange visitors at his home, and men came hurrying from every part of the city to see them. They planned to hurt them. Lot refused to let them see his guests. They pushed him aside and tried to break open the door. At this the angels drew Lot quickly inside and made the men blind.

Lot knew that his visitors were angels, and that they had come to destroy Sodom because it was such a wicked place. He went out to the homes of his sons-in-law, two men of Sodom, and told them that the Lord was going to destroy their city. But they would not believe his words. They would not listen when he told them to hurry and escape for their lives. The angels urged Lot and his wife and their two daughters to make haste and flee out of the city lest they also be destroyed. God was merciful to him, and the angels seized him and his family and dragged them outside the city. They told them to go the mountains and not to look back at their old home, because God would soon destroy the cities of that rich valley.

But Lot's wife did not obey the angel's words. She looked back, and her body became changed into a pillar of salt.Lot was sad! fear now tormented him from every direction. He thought his life would not be safe even in the mountains, for wild animals might devour him there. So he prayed to God to spare a small city near by and allow him and his daughters to enter that place. God heard his prayer and granted his request, so they fled into that city. That place was called Zoar, which means little.

Just as the sun rose, Lot and his daughters entered the gate of. Zoar. At that time God sent a great rain of fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah and all the neighboring cities.



The fire was so terrible that it completely destroyed the cities and all the wicked people near by. Lot and his daughters feared that their lives were not safe in Zoar, so they hurried to the mountains, where God had first told them to go. There they lived in a cave, far away from other people.