The Depravity of Sodom

19 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.^{(A) 2} He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.”^{(B) 3} But he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house, and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.^{(C) 4} But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house, ⁵ and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.”^{(D) 6} Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him,^{(E) 7} and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. ⁸ Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”^{(F) 9} But they replied, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot and came near the door to break it down.^{(G) 10} But the men inside reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. ¹¹ And they struck with blindness the men who were at the door of the house, both small and great, so that they were unable to find the door.^(H)

Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed

¹² Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city—bring them out of the place.^{(I) 13} For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”^{(J) 14} So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up, get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.^(K)

¹⁵ When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.”^{(L) 16} But he lingered, so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city.^{(M) 17} When they had brought them outside, they^[a] said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.”^{(N) 18} And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; ¹⁹ your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life, but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. ²⁰ Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” ²¹ He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor too and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.^{(O) 22} Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar.^{[b] 23} The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

²⁴ Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven,^{(P) 25} and he overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground.^{(Q) 26} But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.^(R)

²⁷ Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord,^{(S) 28} and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain and saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace.^(T)

²⁹ So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had settled.^(U)

The Meaning of Faith

11 Now faith is the assurance^[a] of things hoped for, the conviction^[b] of things not seen.^{(A) 2} Indeed, by faith^[c] our ancestors received approval. ³ By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.^[d](B)

The Examples of Abel, Enoch, and Noah

⁴ By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable^[e] sacrifice than Cain’s. Through this he received approval as righteous, God himself giving approval to his gifts; he died, but through his faith^[f] he still speaks.^{(C) 5} By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death, and “he was not found, because God had taken him.” For it was attested before he was taken away that “he had pleased God.”^{(D) 6} And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would approach God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ⁷ By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household; by this he condemned the world and became an heir to the righteousness that is in accordance with faith.^(E)

The Faith of Abraham

⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he set out, not knowing where he was going.^{(F) 9} By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.^{(G) 10} For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.^{(H) 11} By faith, with Sarah’s involvement, he received power of procreation, even though he was too old, because he considered^[g] him faithful who had promised.^{(I) 12} Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”^(J)

²⁷ Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”^{(A) 28} Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” ²⁹ Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”^{(B) 30} So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us, then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?^{(C) 31} Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ”^{(D) 32} Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is that which^[a] comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”^{(E) 34} They said to him, “Sir,^[b] give us this bread always.”^(F)

³⁵ Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.^{(G) 36} But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.^{(H) 37} Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away,^{(I) 38} for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.^{(J) 39} And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day.^{(K) 40} This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.”^(L)