¹⁷ So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that ^[a]he said, ^(A)“Escape for your life! ^(B)Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape ^(C)to the mountains, lest you be ^[b]destroyed.”

¹⁸ Then Lot said to them, “Please, ^(D)no, my lords! ¹⁹ Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. ²⁰ See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.”

²¹ And he said to him, “See, ^(E)I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. ²² Hurry, escape there. For ^(F)I cannot do anything until you arrive there.”

Therefore ^(G)the name of the city was called ^[c]Zoar.

²³ The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. ²⁴ Then the Lord rained ^(H)brimstone and ^(I)fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. ²⁵ So He ^[d]overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and ^(J)what grew on the ground.

²⁶ But his wife looked back behind him, and she became ^(K)a pillar of salt.

²⁷ And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where ^(L)he had stood before the Lord. ²⁸ Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, ^(M)the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace. ²⁹ And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God ^(N)remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.

³ the South, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho, ^(A)the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.