BERĔSHITH 19 (Genesis 19)

1  And the two messengers came to Seḏom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Seḏom. And when Lot saw them, he rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground,

2 and he said, “Look, please my masters, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet, and rise early and go your way.” And they said, “No, but let us spend the night in the open square.”

3 But he urged them strongly, and they turned in to him and came into his house. And he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4 Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Seḏom, both old and young, all the people from every part, surrounded the house.

5 And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, and let us ‘know’ them.”

6 So Lot went out to them through the doorway, and shut the door behind him,

7 and said, “Please, my brothers, do not do evil!

8 “Look, please, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Please, let me bring them out to you, and do to them as is good in your eyes, only do no deed to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.”

9 But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This one came in to sojourn, and should he always judge? Now we are going to treat you worse than them.” So they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door.

10 But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.

11 Then they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, and they wearied themselves to find the door.

12 And the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city – bring them out of this place!

13 “For we are going to destroy this place, because the cry against them has grown great before the face of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄, and 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 has sent us to destroy it.”

14 And Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place, for 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 is going to destroy this city!” But to his sons-in­-law he seemed to be as one joking.

15 And when morning dawned, the messengers urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”

16 And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, and his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 having compassion on him, and they brought him out and put him outside the city.

17 And it came to be, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be consumed.”

18 And Lot said to them, “Oh no, 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄!

19 “Look, please, your servant has found favour in your eyes, and you have increased your kindness which you have shown me by saving my life, but I am unable to escape to the mountains, lest calamity overtake me and I die.

20 “Look, please, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is small. Please let me escape there – is it not a small matter – and let my life be saved?”

21 And He said to him, “Look, I have favoured you concerning this matter also, without overthrowing this city for which you have spoken.

22 “Hurry, escape there. For I am not able to do any deed until you arrive there.” So the name of the city was called Tso’ar.

23 The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Tso’ar.

24 And 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 rained sulphur and fire on Seḏom and Amorah, from 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 out of the shamayim.

25 So He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.

26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a post of salt.

27 And Aḇraham arose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄,

28 and he looked toward Seḏom and Amorah, and toward all the land of the plain. And he looked and saw the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace.

29 Thus it came to be, when Elohim destroyed the cities of the plain, that Elohim remembered Aḇraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.

30 And Lot went up out of Tso’ar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Tso’ar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.

31 And the first-born said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us, as is the way of all the earth.

32 “Come, let us make our father drink wine and lie with him, so that we preserve the seed of our father.”

33 So they made their father drink wine that night. And the first-born went in and lay with her father, and he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she arose.

34 And it came to be on the next day that the first-born said to the younger, “See, I lay with my father last night. Let us make him drink wine tonight as well, and you go in and lie with him, so that we keep the seed of our father.”

35 So they made their father drink wine that night as well. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she arose.

36 Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.

37 And the first-born bore a son and called his name Mo’aḇ, he is the father of the Mo’abites to this day.

38 And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ammi, he is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.