Chronological
Sodom’s Depravity
19 The two angels entered Sodom at sunset while Lot was sitting in the gate area of the city.[a] When Lot saw them,[b] he got up, greeted them, bowed low with his face to the ground, 2 and said, “Look, my lords! Please come inside your servant’s house, wash your feet, and spend the night. Then you can get up early and be on your way.”
But they responded, “No, we would rather spend the night in the town square.”
3 But Lot[c] kept urging them strongly, so they turned aside and entered his house. He prepared a festival and baked unleavened flat bread for them, and they ate.
4 Before they could lie down, all the men of Sodom and its outskirts, both young and old, surrounded the house. 5 They called out to Lot and asked, “Where are the men who came to visit[d] you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with[e] them!”
6 Lot went outside to them, shut the door behind him, 7 and said, “I urge you, my brothers, don’t do such a wicked thing. 8 Look here, I have two daughters who are virgins.[f] Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them whatever you wish,[g] only don’t do anything to these men, because they’re here under my protection.”[h]
9 But they replied, “Get out of the way! This man came here as a foreigner, and now he’s acting like a judge! So we’re going to deal more harshly with you than with them.” Then they pushed hard against the man (that is, against Lot), intending to break down the door.
10 But the angels[i] inside reached out, dragged Lot back into the house with them, shut the door, 11 and blinded the men who were at the entrance of the house, from the least important to the greatest, so they were unable to find the doorway.
Lot Negotiates with the Angels
12 “Do you have anyone else here in the city?” the angels[j] asked Lot. “A son-in-law? Sons? Daughters? Get them out of this place, 13 because we’re going to destroy it. Their outcry has come to the attention of the Lord, so he[k] sent us here to destroy it!”
14 Lot then went out and told his sons-in-law (they had married his daughters), “Get out of here! The Lord is going to destroy this city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 As dawn was breaking, the angels pressured Lot. “Get going!” they told him. “Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be engulfed by the devastation that’s coming to this city.”
16 But Lot kept lingering in the city,[l] so the men[m] grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters (because of the Lord’s compassion for him!), brought them out of the city, and left them outside. 17 Then one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back or stop anywhere on the plain. Escape to the hills, or you’ll be swept away!”
18 “No! Please, my lords!” Lot pleaded with them. 19 “Your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me your gracious love in how you have dealt with me by keeping me alive. I cannot escape to the hills, because I’m afraid the disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, there is a town nearby where I can flee, and it’s a small one. Let me escape there! It’s a small one, isn’t it? That way I’ll stay alive!”
21 “All right,” the angel replied to Lot,[n] “I’ll agree with your request![o] I won’t overthrow the town that you mentioned. 22 Hurry up and flee there, because I cannot do anything until you get to that town.” Therefore the name of the town was called Zoar.[p]
Lot’s Wife Becomes a Pillar of Salt
23 The sun had risen over the land about the time Lot reached Zoar. 24 Then the Lord rained sulfur and fire out of the sky from the Lord on Sodom and Gomorrah, 25 overthrowing those cities, all of the plain, and everyone who lived in the cities. He also destroyed the plants that grew out of the ground. 26 But Lot’s[q] wife looked back as she lingered behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord earlier. 28 He looked off toward Sodom, Gomorrah, and the entire[r] plain, and he saw smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace. 29 And so it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and brought Lot out from the midst of the destruction when he overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
The Origin of Moab and Ammon
30 Later on, Lot and his two daughters abandoned Zoar and settled in the hills because Lot was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived there in a cave, along with his two daughters. 31 One day the firstborn told the younger one, “Our father is old, and there’s no man in the land to have sex with us,[s] as everybody else throughout all the earth does. 32 Come on! Let’s make our father drink wine, and then we’ll have sex with him so we can preserve our father’s lineage.”
33 So they had their father drink wine that night, and the older one had sexual relations with her father, but he was not aware when she lay down or when she got up. 34 The next day the firstborn told the younger one, “Look! I had sex with my father last night. Let’s make him drink wine tonight again as well. Then you have sex with him, too. That way we’ll preserve our father’s lineage.” 35 So they made their father drink wine that night as well, so he was not aware when she lay down or when she got up.
36 That’s how both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab,[t] and he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. 38 The younger daughter also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-ammi,[u] and he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.
Abraham and Abimelech
20 Abraham traveled from there to the Negev[v] and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was living in Gerar as an outsider, 2 because Abraham kept saying about his wife Sarah, “She is my sister,” King Abimelech of Gerar summoned them and took Sarah into his household.[w]
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream during the night and spoke to him, “Pay attention! You’re about to die, because the woman you have taken is a man’s wife!”
4 Now Abimelech had not yet come near her, so he asked, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? 5 Didn’t he say to me, ‘She’s my sister’? And she also said, ‘He’s my brother.’ I did this with pure intentions and clean hands.”
6 Then God replied to him in the dream, “I know that you did this with pure intentions, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I didn’t allow you to touch her. 7 Now then, return the man’s wife. As a matter of fact, he’s a prophet and can intercede for you so you’ll live. But if you don’t return her, be aware that you and all who are yours will certainly die.”
8 So Abimelech got up early the next morning, summoned all his servants, and told them all these things. The men became terrified.
9 Then Abimelech called Abraham and asked him, “What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you, that you have brought such great sin against me and my kingdom? You’ve done things to me that ought not to have been done.”
10 Abimelech also asked Abraham, “What could you have been thinking when you did this?”
11 “I thought that there’s no fear of God in this place,” Abraham replied, “and that they would kill me because of my wife. 12 Besides, she really is my sister—she’s my father’s daughter, but not my mother’s daughter—so she could become my wife. 13 When God caused me to journey from my father’s house, I asked her to do me this favor and say,[x] ‘He’s my brother.’”
14 So Abimelech took some sheep and oxen, and some male and female servants, gave them to Abraham, returned his wife Sarah to him, 15 and said, “Look! My land is available to you, so settle wherever you please.”
16 Abimelech also told Sarah, “Look! I am giving your brother 1,000 pieces of silver to vindicate[y] you in the eyes of all who are with you. As a result, you will be completely vindicated.”
17 Then Abraham interceded with God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants so they could bear children, 18 since the Lord had made all the women barren[z] in Abimelech’s household on account of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Isaac is Born
21 The Lord came to Sarah, just as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah conceived and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age, at the very time that God had told him.
3 Abraham named his son who was born to him Isaac—the very one whom Sarah bore for him! 4 On the eighth day after his son Isaac had been born,[aa] Abraham circumcised him, just as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Now Sarah had said, “God has caused me to laugh,[ab] and all who hear about it[ac] will laugh with me.” 7 She also said, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse sons? Yet I have given birth to a son in my husband’s[ad] old age!”
Hagar and Ishmael Leave
8 The child grew and eventually was weaned, so Abraham threw a tremendous banquet on the very day Isaac was weaned. 9 Nevertheless, when Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian—whom Hagar had borne to Abraham—making fun of Isaac,[ae] 10 she told Abraham, “Throw out this slave girl, along with her son, because this slave’s son will never be a co-heir with my son Isaac!”
11 Abraham was very troubled about what was being said about his son, 12 but God told Abraham, “Don’t be troubled about the youth and your slave girl. Pay attention to Sarah in everything she tells you, because your offspring are to be named through Isaac. 13 Nevertheless, I will make the slave girl’s son into a nation, since he, too, is your offspring.”
14 So early the next morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a leather bottle of water, gave them to Hagar, and placed them on her shoulder. He then sent her away, along with the child. She went off and roamed in the Beer-sheba wilderness. 15 Eventually, the water in the leather bottle ran out, so she placed the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat by herself about a distance of a bowshot away, because she kept saying to herself, “I can’t bear to watch the child die!” That’s why she sat a short distance away, crying aloud and weeping.
The Lord Rescues Hagar and Ishmael
17 God heard the boy’s voice, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven. He asked her, “What’s wrong with you, Hagar? Don’t be afraid, because God has heard the voice of the youth where he is. 18 Get up! Pick up the youth and grab his hand, because I will make a great nation of his descendants.”[af] 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went, filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He settled in the wilderness and became an expert archer. 21 Later he settled in the desert area of Paran, and his mother chose a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
A Covenant with Abimelech
22 About that time, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, told Abraham, “God is with you in everything that you’re doing. 23 Therefore swear an oath here by God that you won’t deal falsely with me, my sons, or my descendants. Just as I’ve dealt graciously with you, won’t you do so with me and with the land in which you live as a foreigner?”
24 And Abraham replied, “I agree!” 25 But then Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized.
26 “I don’t know who did this thing,” Abimelech replied. “You didn’t report this to me, and I didn’t hear about it until today.”
27 So Abraham took sheep and oxen and presented them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28 Then Abraham set aside seven ewe lambs, 29 so Abimelech asked Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set aside?”
30 He replied, “You are to accept from me these seven ewe lambs as a witness that I have dug this well.” 31 Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba, because the two of them swore an oath.[ag] 32 So after they had made a covenant in Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, left and returned to Philistine territory.
33 Abraham[ah] planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord God Everlasting. 34 After this, Abraham resided as a foreigner in Philistine territory for a long period of time.
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