Genesis 19:17-29

Holman Christian Standard Bible

¹⁷ As soon as the angels got them outside, one of them^[a] said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back and don’t stop anywhere on the plain! Run to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”

¹⁸ But Lot said to them, “No, my lords^[b]—please. ¹⁹ Your servant has indeed found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness by saving my life. But I can’t run to the mountains; the disaster will overtake me, and I will die. ²⁰ Look, this town is close enough for me to run to. It is a small place. Please let me go there—it’s only a small place, isn’t it?—so that I can survive.”

²¹ And he said to him, “All right,^[c] I’ll grant your request^[d] about this matter too and will not demolish the town you mentioned. ²² Hurry up! Run there, for I cannot do anything until you get there.” Therefore the name of the city is Zoar.^[e](A)

²³ The sun had risen over the land when Lot reached Zoar. ²⁴ Then out of the sky the Lord rained burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord.^{(B) 25} He demolished these cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and whatever grew on the ground. ²⁶ But his wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.^(C)

²⁷ Early in the morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood before the Lord.^{(D) 28} He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw that smoke was going up from the land like the smoke of a furnace. ²⁹ So it was, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the middle of the upheaval when He demolished the cities where Lot had lived.