The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

191 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening. Lot was sitting at the city gate. He saw them and got up to welcome them, bowing before them 2 and said, "Please, my friends, come to my house and stay the night. Wash up. You can rise early and be on your way refreshed." They said, "No, we'll sleep in the street." 3 But he insisted, wouldn't take no for an answer; and they relented and went home with him. Lot fixed a hot meal for them and they ate.

4 Before they went to bed men from all over the city of Sodom, young and old, descended on the house from all sides and boxed them in. 5 They yelled to Lot, "Where are the men who are staying with you for the night? Bring them out so we can have our sport with them!" 6 Lot went out, barring the door behind him, 7 and said, "Brothers, please, don't be vile! 8 Look, I have two daughters, virgins; let me bring them out; you can take your pleasure with them, but don't touch these men - they're my guests." 9 They said, "Get lost! You drop in from nowhere and now you're going to tell us how to run our lives. We'll treat you worse than them!" And they charged past Lot to break down the door. 10 But the two men reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, locking the door. 11 Then they struck blind the men who were trying to break down the door, both leaders and followers, leaving them groping in the dark.

12 The two men said to Lot, "Do you have any other family here? Sons, daughters - anybody in the city? Get them out of here, and now! 13 We're going to destroy this place. The outcries of victims here to God are deafening; we've been sent to blast this place into oblivion." 14 Lot went out and warned the fiancZs of his daughters, "Evacuate this place; God is about to destroy this city!" But his daughters' would-be husbands treated it as a joke.

15 At break of day, the angels pushed Lot to get going, "Hurry. Get your wife and two daughters out of here before it's too late and you're caught in the punishment of the city." 16 Lot was dragging his feet. The men grabbed Lot's arm, and the arms of his wife and daughters - God was so merciful to them! - and dragged them to safety outside the city. 17 When they had them outside, Lot was told, "Now run for your life! Don't look back! Don't stop anywhere on the plain - run for the hills or you'll be swept away." 18 But Lot protested, "No, masters, you can't mean it! 19 I know that you've taken a liking to me and have done me an immense favor in saving my life, but I can't run for the mountains - who knows what terrible thing might happen to me in the mountains and leave me for dead. 20 Look over there - that town is close enough to get to. It's a small town, hardly anything to it. Let me escape there and save my life - it's a mere wide place in the road." 21 He said to him, "All right. If you insist. I'll let you have your way. And I won't stamp out the town you've spotted. 22 But hurry up. Run for it! I can't do anything until you get there." That's why the town was called Zoar, that is, Smalltown. 23 The sun was high in the sky when Lot arrived at Zoar.

24 Then God rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah - a river of lava from God out of the sky! - 25 and destroyed these cities and the entire plain and everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew from the ground.

26 But Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.

27 Abraham got up early the next morning and went to the place he had so recently stood with God. 28 He looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah, surveying the whole plain. All he could see was smoke belching from the Earth, like smoke from a furnace. 29 And that's the story: When God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham and first got Lot out of there before he blasted those cities off the face of the Earth.

30 Lot left Zoar and went into the mountains to live with his two daughters; he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his daughters. 31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is getting old and there's not a man left in the country by whom we can get pregnant. 32 Let's get our father drunk with wine and lie with him. We'll get children through our father - it's our only chance to keep our family alive." 33 They got their father drunk with wine that very night. The older daughter went and lay with him. He was oblivious, knowing nothing of what she did. 34 The next morning the older said to the younger, "Last night I slept with my father. Tonight, it's your turn. We'll get him drunk again and then you sleep with him. We'll both get a child through our father and keep our family alive." 35 So that night they got their father drunk again and the younger went in and slept with him. Again he was oblivious, knowing nothing of what she did. 36 Both daughters became pregnant by their father, Lot. 37 The older daughter had a son and named him Moab, the ancestor of the present-day Moabites. 38 The younger daughter had a son and named him Ben-Ammi, the ancestor of the present-day Ammonites.

Man's Disobedience

31 The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: "Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?" 2 The Woman said to the serpent, "Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. 3 It's only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'Don't eat from it; don't even touch it or you'll die.'" 4 The serpent told the Woman, "You won't die. 5 God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you'll see what's really going on. You'll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil."

6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it - she'd know everything! - she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate. 7 Immediately the two of them did "see what's really going on" - saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. 8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.

9 God called to the Man: "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid."

11 God said, "Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?" 12 The Man said, "The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it." 13 God said to the Woman, "What is this that you've done?" "The serpent seduced me," she said, "and I ate."

14 God told the serpent: "Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals, Cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. 15 I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He'll wound your head, you'll wound his heel."

16 He told the Woman: "I'll multiply your pains in childbirth; you'll give birth to your babies in pain. You'll want to please your husband, but he'll lord it over you."

17 He told the Man: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree That I commanded you not to eat from, 'Don't eat from this tree,' The very ground is cursed because of you; getting food from the ground Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife; you'll be working in pain all your life long. 18 The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you'll get your food the hard way, Planting and tilling and harvesting, 19 sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."

20 The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.

21 God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.

22 God said, "The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never - this cannot happen!" 23 So God expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they'd been made. 24 He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.