19. You have been merciful and kind to me. You have saved my life. But I can’t run to the mountains. The disaster will catch me, and I will die.
20. Look, that little town over there is not too far away. Let me run there. It’s really just a little town. I’ll be safe there.”
21. The angel said to Lot, “Very well, I will allow you to do this also. I will not destroy that town.
22. But run there fast. I cannot destroy Sodom until you are safely in that town.” (That town is named Zoar, because it is little.)
23. The sun had already come up when Lot entered Zoar.
24. The Lord sent a rain of burning sulfur down from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah.
25. So the Lord destroyed those cities. He also destroyed the whole Jordan Valley, everyone living in the cities and even all the plants.
26. At that point Lot’s wife looked back. When she did, she became a pillar of salt.
27. Early the next morning, Abraham got up and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord.
28. Abraham looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the Jordan Valley. He saw smoke rising from the land. It was like smoke from a furnace.
29. God destroyed the cities in the valley. But he remembered what Abraham had asked. So God saved Lot’s life. But he destroyed the city where Lot had lived.
30. Lot was afraid to continue living in Zoar. So he and his two daughters went to live in the mountains. They lived in a cave there.
31. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old. Everywhere on the earth women and men marry. But there are no men around here for us to marry.
32. Let’s get our father drunk. Then we can have physical relations with him. We can use our father to have children. That way we can continue our family.”