16. But while he lingered, the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, for the Lord was merciful to him; and they brought him forth and set him outside the city and left him there.
17. And when they had brought them forth, they said, Escape for your life! Do not look behind you or stop anywhere in the whole valley; escape to the mountains [of Moab], lest you be consumed.
18. And Lot said to them, Oh, not that, my lords!
19. Behold now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your kindness and mercy to me in saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest the evil overtake me, and I die.
20. See now yonder city; it is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh, let me escape to it! Is it not a little one? And my life will be saved!
21. And [the angel] said to him, See, I have yielded to your entreaty concerning this thing also; I will not destroy this city of which you have spoken.
22. Make haste and take refuge there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar [little].
23. The sun had risen over the earth when Lot entered Zoar.
24. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of the heavens.
25. He overthrew, destroyed, and ended those cities, and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
26. But [Lot's] wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
27. Abraham went up early the next morning to the place where he [only the day before] had stood before the Lord.
28. And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and saw, and behold, the smoke of the country went up like the smoke of a furnace.
29. When God ravaged and destroyed the cities of the plain [of Siddim], He [earnestly] remembered Abraham [imprinted and fixed him indelibly on His mind], and He sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when He overthrew the cities where Lot lived.
30. And Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him, for he feared to dwell in Zoar; and he lived in a cave, he and his two daughters.
31. The elder said to the younger, Our father is aging, and there is not a man on earth to live with us in the customary way.
32. Come, let us make our father drunk with wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring (our race) through our father.
33. And they made their father drunk with wine that night, and the older went in and lay with her father; and he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she arose.