THE WORD OF ELOHIM

GENESIS

     The two angels arrived in Sedom, in the evening, as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sedom.  When Lot saw them, he rose to greet them and bowing low with his face to the ground, he said, "Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant's house to spend the night and bathe your feet; then you may be on your way early."  But they said, "No, we will spend the night in the square."  But he urged them strongly, so they turned his way and entered his house.  He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread and they ate.

     They had not yet lain down, when the townspeople, the men of Sedom, young and old―all the people to the last man―gathered about the house and shouted to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight?  Bring them out to us, that we may be intimate with them."  So Lot went out to them to the entrance, shut the door behind him and said, "I beg you, my friends, do not commit such a wrong.  Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man.  Let me bring them out to you and you may do to them as you please; but do not do anything to these men, since they have come under the shelter of my roof."  But they said, "Stand back!  The fellow," they said, "Came here as an alien, and already he acts the ruler?  Now we will deal worse with you than with them."  And they pressed hard against the person of Lot and moved forward to break the door.  But the men stretched out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them and shut the door.  And the people who were at the entrance of the house, young and old, they struck with blinding light, so that they were helpless to find the entrance.

     Then the men said to Lot, "Whom else have you here?  Sons-in-law, your sons and daughters, or anyone else that you have in the city―bring them out of the place.  For we are about to destroy this place; because the outcry against them before Yehovah has become so great that Yehovah has sent us to destroy it."  So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters and said, "Up, get out of this place, for Yehovah is about to destroy the city."  But he seemed to his sons-in-law as one who jests.

     As dawn broke, the angels urged Lot on, saying, "Up, take your wife and your two remaining daughters, lest you be swept away, because of the iniquity of the city."  Still he delayed, so the men seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters―in Yehovah's mercy on him―and brought him out and left him outside the city.  When they had brought them outside, one said, "Flee for your life!  Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the plain; flee to the hills, lest you be swept away."  But Lot said to them, "Oh no, my lord!  You have been so gracious to your servant and have already shown me so much kindness, in order to save my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die.  Look, that town there is near enough to flee to; it is such a little place!  Let  me flee there―it is such a little place―and let my life be saved."  He replied, "Very well, I will grant you this favor too, and I will not annihilate the town of which you have spoken.  Hurry, flee there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there."  Hence the town came to be called Tsoar.

     As the sun rose upon the earth and Lot entered Tsoar, Yehovah rained upon Sedom and Amorah, sulfurous fire from Yehovah, out of heaven.  He annihilated those cities and the entire plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation of the ground.  Lot's wife looked back and she thereupon turned into a pillar of salt.

     Next morning, Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood before Yehovah, and looking down toward Sedom and Amorah and all the land of the plain, he saw the smoke of the land rising like the smoke of a kiln.  

     Thus it was that when Elohim destroyed the cities of the plain and annihilated the cities where Lot dwelt, Elohim was mindful of Abraham and removed Lot from the midst of the upheaval.

     Lot went up from Tsoar and settled in the hill country with his two daughters, for he was afraid to dwell in Tsoar, and he and his two daughters lived in a cave.  And the older one said to the younger, "Our father is old and there is not a man on earth to consort with us in the way of all the world.  Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him, that we may maintain life through our father."  That night they made their father drink wine and the older one went in and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose.  The next day, the older one said to the younger, "See, I lay with father last night; let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go and lie with him, that we may maintain life through our father,"  That night also they made their father drink wine and the younger one went and lay with him; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose.

     Thus the two daughters of Lot came to be with child by their father.  The older one bore a son and named him Moav; he is the father of the Moavim of today.  And the younger also bore a son, and she called him Ben-ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

Chapter 19

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