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The Depravity of Sodom

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. ²He 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.” ³But 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. ⁴But 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; ⁵and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” ⁶Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, ⁷and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. ⁸Look, 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.” ⁹But 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. ¹⁰But the men inside reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. ¹¹And 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.

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. ¹³For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the L ord, and the L ord has sent us to destroy it.” ¹⁴So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up, get out of this place; for the L ord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.

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.” ¹⁶But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the L ord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city. ¹⁷When they had brought them outside, they 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.” ¹⁸And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; ¹⁹your 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. ²⁰Look, 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!” ²¹He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. ²²Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar. ²³The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

²⁴ Then the L ord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the L ord out of heaven; ²⁵and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. ²⁶But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

²⁷ Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the L ord; ²⁸and 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.

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.

The Shameful Origin of Moab and Ammon

³⁰ Now Lot went up out of Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; so he lived in a cave with his two daughters. ³¹And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the world. ³²Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.” ³³So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. ³⁴On the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Look, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.” ³⁵So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger rose, and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. ³⁶Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. ³⁷The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab; he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. ³⁸The younger also bore a son and named him Ben-ammi; he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

33. And he perceived not. Though Lot not sinned knowingly, yet, because his drunkenness was the cause of his sin, his guilt is diminished, but not annulled. Without doubt the Lord has chastised his dissatisfaction in this manner. This is something rare and strange, that his senses are so under influence of the wine, that he, like a dead man pours out his lust. Therefore I assume that he not so much is fuddled through the wine, but that his excessiveness is beat by God through the spirit of ignorance. And when God has not spared the holy Patriarch, how can we then think to be unpunished, when we do the same excessiveness? Let we therefore realize through this example, that the law of modesty is prescribed us, in order that we eat modestly and moderately. Yet, there are some unholy people, who consider Lot as the protector of their wickedness.

Why do we not rather think to which horrible scandal he has decayed, because he excessively used wine? We must, as I already have said, not simply consider what the drunkenness drags along with it, and with which other vices it is connected, but we must consider the punishment of God. Therefore he willed openly spread this tragic crime, in order that the drunkenness will be abhorred. Daily the Lord testifies by heavy punishments, how much this vice displeases Him. When we see that Abraham’s nephew, the host of Angels, a man adored with extraordinary fame of holiness, is defiled by unchaste intercourse, because he has drunk too much, what will then happen to the guzzlers and the whores, who daily drink themselves drunken? But we have at great length spoken about this in the ninth chapter Genesis 9:1, what men can reread. Concerning the words, when Moses says, that Lot did not perceive it, that his daughter lay down and arose — some explain it thus that he saw no difference between a stranger and his own daughter. But when he was not totally blinded, he could in the morning, having slept out his intoxication, know that he has had intercourse with his daughter. Some say, to diminish his guilt, that he not so much is fuddled through much drinking, but that he was depressed through sadness. But I retain this, that he, as he was endowed with more splendid gifts, also deserved the more punishment, and that therefore his reason was taken away from him, so that he, like a unreasonable beast, lost himself in sensual lust.