Genesis 19:17–29

¹⁷As soon as the angels had brought them out, one of them spoke. He said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back! Don’t stop anywhere in the valley! Run to the mountains! If you don’t, you will be swept away!”

¹⁸But Lot said to them, “No, my lords! Please! ¹⁹You have done me a big favor. You have been very kind to me by sparing my life. But I can’t run to the mountains. This horrible thing that’s going to happen will catch up with me. And then I’ll die.

²⁰“Look, here’s a town near enough to run to. It’s small. Let me run to it. It’s very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”

²¹The Lord said to Lot, “All right. I will also give you what you are asking for. I will not destroy the town you are talking about. ²²But run there quickly. I can’t do anything until you reach it.”

The town was named Zoar. Zoar means “small.”

²³By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. ²⁴Then the Lord sent down burning sulfur. It came down like rain on Sodom and Gomorrah. It came from the Lord out of the sky. ²⁵He destroyed those cities and the whole valley. All of the people who were living in the cities were wiped out. So were the plants in the land.

²⁶But Lot’s wife looked back. When she did, she became a pillar made out of salt.

²⁷Early the next morning Abraham got up. He returned to the place where he had stood in front of the Lord. ²⁸He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole valley. He saw thick smoke rising from the land. It looked like smoke from a furnace.

²⁹So when God destroyed the cities of the valley, he showed concern for Abraham. He brought Lot out safely when he destroyed the cities where Lot had lived.