The Overthrow of Sodom

About this time the Sodomites grew proud because of their riches and great wealth. They became insolent toward people and impious toward God, so that they no longer remembered the benefits they had received from him. They hated strangers and shunned all dealings with others. So God was greatly displeased with them, and resolved to punish them for their pride, to overthrow their city, and to lay waste their country until neither plant nor fruit would grow out of it. [a]

When God had decided this about the Sodomites, Abraham, as he sat by the oak of Mamre at the door of his courtyard, saw three angels. Taking them for strangers, he rose and greeted them, and asked them to accept his hospitality and stay with him. When they agreed, he had cakes of flour made at once; and when he had killed a calf, he roasted it and brought it to them as they sat under the oak. They made a show of eating; and they also asked him where his wife Sarah was. When he said she was inside, they said they would come again later and find her a mother. At this the woman smiled, and said it was impossible for her to bear children, since she was ninety years old and her husband a hundred. Then they hid themselves no longer, but declared that they were angels of God, and that one of them had been sent to tell them about the child, and two about the overthrow of Sodom. [b]

When Abraham heard this he grieved for the Sodomites. He rose and pleaded with God for them, begging him not to destroy the righteous with the wicked. And when God answered that there was no good man among the Sodomites — for if there were even ten such men among them, he would not punish any of them for their sins — Abraham said no more.

The angels came to the city of the Sodomites, and Lot urged them to accept lodging with him; for he was a very generous and hospitable man, who had learned to imitate the goodness of Abraham. When the Sodomites saw that the young men had beautiful faces, extraordinarily so, and that they were lodging with Lot, they resolved to enjoy these beautiful boys by force and violence. Lot urged them to restraint, and not to do anything indecent to the strangers but to respect their being guests in his house; and he promised that, if they could not govern their desires, he would give up his daughters to their lust instead of these strangers. Not even this persuaded them.

God was greatly angered at their shameless behavior. He struck those men blind, so that they could not find the way into the house, and condemned the Sodomites to total destruction. Lot, when God told him of the coming destruction of the Sodomites, went away, taking with him his wife and his daughters, who were two and still virgins; for the men betrothed to them thought themselves above leaving, and considered Lot’s words nonsense. Then God hurled a thunderbolt on the city and set it on fire with its inhabitants, and laid the country waste with the same burning, as I said earlier when I wrote the Jewish War. But Lot’s wife kept turning back to look at the city as she left it, too curious about what would become of it, although God had forbidden her to do so; and she was changed into a pillar of salt. I have seen it, for it remains to this day. Lot and his daughters fled to a certain small place surrounded by the fire, and settled in it. It is called Zoar to this day, for that is the word the Hebrews use for a small thing. There he lived a miserable life, because he had no company and lacked provisions. [e]

But his daughters, thinking that all mankind had been destroyed, lay with their father, taking care that he should not notice. They did this so that the human race would not die out entirely. And they bore sons. The elder’s son was named Moab, which means “one from his father”; the younger bore Ammon, a name that means “one from a kinsman”. The first became the father of the Moabites, who are still a great nation; the second, the father of the Ammonites. Both peoples live in Coele-Syria. Such was Lot’s departure from among the Sodomites. [i]