Historical
Chapter 19
Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.[a] 1 The two angels reached Sodom in the evening, as Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up to greet them; and bowing down with his face to the ground, 2 he said, “Please, my lords,[b] come aside into your servant’s house for the night, and bathe your feet; you can get up early to continue your journey.” But they replied, “No, we will pass the night in the town square.”(A) 3 He urged them so strongly, however, that they turned aside to his place and entered his house. He prepared a banquet for them, baking unleavened bread, and they dined.
4 (B)Before they went to bed, the townsmen of Sodom, both young and old—all the people to the last man—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have sexual relations with them.” 6 Lot went out to meet them at the entrance. When he had shut the door behind him, 7 he said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not do this wicked thing! 8 I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with men. Let me bring them out to you,[c] and you may do to them as you please. But do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” 9 They replied, “Stand back! This man,” they said, “came here as a resident alien, and now he dares to give orders! We will treat you worse than them!” With that, they pressed hard against Lot, moving in closer to break down the door.(C) 10 But his guests put out their hands, pulled Lot inside with them, and closed the door; 11 they struck the men at the entrance of the house, small and great, with such a blinding light[d] that they were utterly unable to find the doorway.
12 Then the guests said to Lot: “Who else belongs to you here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, all who belong to you in the city—take them away from this place!(D) 13 We are about to destroy this place, for the outcry reaching the Lord against those here is so great that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”(E) 14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had contracted marriage with his daughters.[e] “Come on, leave this place,” he told them; “the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, “Come on! Take your wife with you and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 When he hesitated, the men, because of the Lord’s compassion for him, seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them to safety outside the city. 17 As soon as they had brought them outside, they said: “Flee for your life! Do not look back or stop anywhere on the Plain. Flee to the hills at once, or you will be swept away.”(F) 18 “Oh, no, my lords!” Lot replied to them. 19 “You have already shown favor to your servant, doing me the great kindness of saving my life. But I cannot flee to the hills, or the disaster will overtake and kill me. 20 Look, this town ahead is near enough to escape to. It is only a small place.[f] Let me flee there—is it not a small place?—to save my life.” 21 “Well, then,” he replied, “I grant you this favor too. I will not overthrow the town you have mentioned. 22 Hurry, escape there! I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” That is why the town is called Zoar.(G)
23 The sun had risen over the earth when Lot arrived in Zoar, 24 and the Lord rained down sulfur upon Sodom and Gomorrah, fire from the Lord out of heaven.(H) 25 He overthrew[g] those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil.(I) 26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.(J)
27 The next morning Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 As he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole region of the Plain,[h] he saw smoke over the land rising like the smoke from a kiln.(K)
29 When God destroyed the cities of the Plain, he remembered Abraham and sent Lot away from the upheaval that occurred when God overthrew the cities where Lot had been living.
Moabites and Ammonites.[i] 30 Since Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, he and his two daughters went up from Zoar and settled in the hill country, where he lived with his two daughters in a cave. 31 The firstborn said to the younger: “Our father is getting old, and there is not a man in the land to have intercourse with us as is the custom everywhere. 32 Come, let us ply our father with wine and then lie with him, that we may ensure posterity by our father.” 33 So that night they plied their father with wine, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; but he was not aware of her lying down or getting up. 34 The next day the firstborn said to the younger: “Last night I lay with my father. Let us ply him with wine again tonight, and then you go in and lie with him, that we may ensure posterity by our father.” 35 So that night, too, they plied their father with wine, and then the younger one went in and lay with him; but he was not aware of her lying down or getting up.
36 Thus the two daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn gave birth to a son whom she named Moab, saying, “From my father.”[j] He is the ancestor of the Moabites of today.(L) 38 The younger one, too, gave birth to a son, and she named him Ammon, saying, “The son of my kin.”[k] He is the ancestor of the Ammonites of today.(M)
Chapter 20
Abraham at Gerar.[l] 1 From there Abraham journeyed on to the region of the Negeb, where he settled between Kadesh and Shur.[m] While he resided in Gerar as an alien, 2 Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him: You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, for she has a husband. 4 Abimelech, who had not approached her, said: “O Lord, would you kill an innocent man? 5 Was he not the one who told me, ‘She is my sister’? She herself also stated, ‘He is my brother.’ I acted with pure heart and with clean hands.” 6 [n]God answered him in the dream: Yes, I know you did it with a pure heart. In fact, it was I who kept you from sinning against me; that is why I did not let you touch her. 7 So now, return the man’s wife so that he may intercede for you, since he is a prophet,[o] that you may live. If you do not return her, you can be sure that you and all who are yours will die.
8 Early the next morning Abimelech called all his servants and informed them of everything that had happened, and the men were filled with fear. 9 Then Abimelech summoned Abraham and said to him: “What have you done to us! What wrong did I do to you that you would have brought such great guilt on me and my kingdom? You have treated me in an intolerable way. 10 What did you have in mind,” Abimelech asked him, “that you would do such a thing?” 11 Abraham answered, “I thought there would be no fear of God[p] in this place, and so they would kill me on account of my wife. 12 Besides, she really is my sister,[q] but only my father’s daughter, not my mother’s; and so she became my wife. 13 When God sent me wandering from my father’s house, I asked her: ‘Would you do me this favor? In whatever place we come to, say: He is my brother.’”(N)
14 Then Abimelech took flocks and herds and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham; and he restored his wife Sarah to him. 15 Then Abimelech said, “Here, my land is at your disposal; settle wherever you please.” 16 To Sarah he said: “I hereby give your brother a thousand shekels of silver. This will preserve your honor before all who are with you and will exonerate you before everyone.” 17 Abraham then interceded with God, and God restored health to Abimelech, to his wife, and his maidservants, so that they bore children; 18 for the Lord had closed every womb in Abimelech’s household on account of Abraham’s wife Sarah.
Chapter 21
Birth of Isaac.[r] 1 The Lord took note of Sarah as he had said he would; the Lord did for her as he had promised.(O) 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had stated.(P) 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to this son of his whom Sarah bore him.(Q) 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded.(R) 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Sarah then said, “God has given me cause to laugh,[s] and all who hear of it will laugh with me.(S) 7 Who would ever have told Abraham,” she added, “that Sarah would nurse children! Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” 8 The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great banquet on the day of the child’s weaning.
9 Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac; 10 so she demanded of Abraham: “Drive out that slave and her son! No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!”(T) 11 Abraham was greatly distressed because it concerned a son of his.[t] 12 But God said to Abraham: Do not be distressed about the boy or about your slave woman. Obey Sarah, no matter what she asks of you; for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name.(U) 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also,[u] since he too is your offspring.
14 Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back,[v] he sent her away. As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba, 15 the water in the skin was used up. So she put the child down under one of the bushes, 16 and then went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away; for she said to herself, “I cannot watch the child die.” As she sat opposite him, she wept aloud. 17 God heard the boy’s voice, and God’s angel called to Hagar from heaven: “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear; God has heard the boy’s voice in this plight of his.(V) 18 Get up, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand; for I will make of him a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and then let the boy drink.
20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert bowman. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
The Covenant at Beer-sheba. 22 [w]At that time Abimelech, accompanied by Phicol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham: “God is with you in everything you do. 23 So now, swear to me by God at this place[x] that you will not deal falsely with me or with my progeny and posterity, but will act as loyally toward me and the land in which you reside as I have acted toward you.” 24 Abraham replied, “I so swear.”
25 Abraham, however, reproached Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized by force. 26 “I have no idea who did that,” Abimelech replied. “In fact, you never told me about it, nor did I ever hear of it until now.”
27 Then Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech and the two made a covenant. 28 Abraham also set apart seven ewe lambs of the flock, 29 and Abimelech asked him, “What is the purpose of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?” 30 Abraham answered, “The seven ewe lambs you shall accept from me that you may be my witness that I dug this well.” 31 This is why the place is called Beer-sheba; the two of them took an oath there. 32 When they had thus made the covenant in Beer-sheba, Abimelech, along with Phicol, the commander of his army, left to return to the land of the Philistines.[y]
33 Abraham planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and there he invoked by name the Lord, God the Eternal.[z] 34 Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.