Abraham: The Covenant

When they had brought them out, he said, "Flee for your life! Don't look behind you, and don't stop anywhere in the plain, but escape to the hills! Otherwise you will be swept away."

Lot said to them, "Please, no, my lord!

Here, your servant has already found favor in your sight, and you have shown me even greater mercy by saving my life. But I can't escape to the hills, because I'm afraid the disaster will overtake me, and I will die.

Look, there's a town nearby to flee to, and it's a small one. Please let me escape there - isn't it just a small one? -and that way I will stay alive."

He replied, "All right, I agree to what you have asked. I won't overthrow the city of which you have spoken.

Hurry, and escape to that place, because I can't do anything until you arrive there." For this reason the city was named Tzo'ar [small].

By the time Lot had come to Tzo'ar, the sun had risen over the land.

Then ADONAI caused sulfur and fire to rain down upon S'dom and 'Amora from ADONAI out of the sky.

He overthrew those cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities and everything growing in the ground.

But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a column of salt.

Avraham got up early in the morning, went to the place where he had stood before ADONAI,

and looked out toward S'dom and 'Amora, scanning the entire plain. There before him the smoke was rising from the land like smoke from a furnace!

But when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Avraham and sent Lot out, away from the destruction, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

Lot went up from Tzo'ar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, because he was afraid to stay in Tzo'ar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.

The firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there isn't a man on earth to come in to us in the manner customary in the world.

Come, let's have our father drink wine; then we'll sleep with him, and that way we'll enable our father to have descendants."

So they plied their father with wine that night, and the older one went in and slept with her father; he didn't know when she lay down or when she got up.

The following day, the older said to the younger, "Here, I slept last night with my father. Let's make him drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him, and that way we'll enable our father to have descendants."

They plied their father with wine that night also, and the younger one got up and slept with him, and he didn't know when she lay down or when she got up.

Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.

The older one gave birth to a son and called him Mo'av; he is the ancestor of Mo'av to this day.

The younger also gave birth to a son, and she called him Ben-'Ammi; he is the ancestor of the people of 'Amon to this day.

Avraham traveled from there toward the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. While living as an alien in G'rar,

Avraham was saying of Sarah his wife, "She is my sister"; so Avimelekh king of G'rar sent and took Sarah.

But God came to Avimelekh in a dream one night and said to him, "You are about to die because of the woman you have taken, since she is someone's wife."