Genesis 19:17-29

17As soon as the angels got them outside, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back and don’t stop anywhere on the plain! Run to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”

18But Lot said to them, “No, my lords  — please.

19Your servant has indeed found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness by saving my life. But I can’t run to the mountains; the disaster will overtake me, and I will die.

20Look, this town is close enough for me to flee to. It is a small place. Please let me run to it — it’s only a small place, isn’t it? — so that I can survive.”

21And he said to him, “All right, I’ll grant your request about this matter too and will not demolish the town you mentioned.

22Hurry up! Run to it, for I cannot do anything until you get there.” Therefore the name of the city is Zoar.

23The sun had risen over the land when Lot reached Zoar.

24Then out of the sky the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah burning sulfur from the Lord.

25He demolished these cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and whatever grew on the ground.

26But Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.

27Early in the morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood before the Lord.

28He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw that smoke was going up from the land like the smoke of a furnace.

29So it was, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the middle of the upheaval when he demolished the cities where Lot had lived.