Genesis 18-19
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 18
God Becomes a Guest.[a] 1 The Lord appeared to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest part of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing nearby. As soon as he saw them, he ran to meet them from the entrance of his tent and bowed down to the ground, 3 saying, “My lord, if I have found favor with you, please do not pass on without stopping to visit your servant. 4 Let some water be brought so that you may wash your feet. Make yourselves comfortable under this tree. 5 Let me go and prepare a bit of food that you may refresh yourselves. Afterward, you can go on your way. It is for this that you have come to visit your servant.”
They answered, “Do as you have said.”
6 So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick, take three seahs[b] of fine flour, knead it, and make it into rolls.”
7 He ran to the herd, took a choice calf, and gave it to his servant, who quickly prepared it. 8 He then took curds[c] and milk, as well as the veal that had been prepared, and he placed them before his guests. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
9 They then said, “Where is Sarah, your wife?” He answered, “She is in the tent.” 10 The Lord[d] said, “I will return this way a year from now, and by that time Sarah, your wife, will have a son.” Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, just behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. Sarah no longer had her monthly periods. 12 Sarah therefore laughed to herself and said, “After I am withered and my husband is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
13 But the Lord said to Abraham, “Why is Sarah laughing and saying, ‘Can I really give birth now that I am so old?’ 14 Is anything impossible to the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time, one year from now, and Sarah will have a son.” 15 Sarah denied laughing, saying, “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid. But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
16 The “Friend” of God.[e] The men rose up and went along to look down upon Sodom from on high while Abraham accompanied them to show them the way. 17 The Lord said, “Should I keep hidden from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 for Abraham shall become a great and powerful nation and all of the nations of the earth shall be blessed through him? 19 I chose him so that he would instruct his sons and his family after him to observe the ways of the Lord and to act with justice and righteousness so that the Lord might fulfill what he has promised to Abraham.”
20 Therefore, the Lord said, “The cry against Sodom and Gomorrah is too great and their sin is very grave. 21 I am going to descend to see if they have really done all the evil that has cried out to me. I want to know this!”
22 While the two men departed and journeyed toward Sodom, Abraham remained standing before the Lord. 23 Abraham approached him and said to him, “Is it true that you will destroy the just along with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really destroy it? Will you not spare it for the sake of the fifty righteous people that you found there? 25 Far be it from you to make the righteous die along with the wicked, so that the righteous would have the same fate as the wicked. Far be it from you! Is it possible that the judge of the whole earth does not practice justice?” 26 The Lord answered, “If I find fifty righteous people living in the city of Sodom, for their sake I will spare the city.”
27 Abraham spoke again, “Look how I dare to speak with my Lord, I who am dust and ashes. 28 What if there are five fewer than fifty righteous people, will you destroy the entire city because of those five?”
He answered, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”
29 Abraham spoke again and said, “What if you find forty there?” He answered, “I will not do it, for the sake of those forty.” 30 And again he said, “Let my Lord not grow impatient with me if I continue to speak; what if thirty are found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” 31 Once again he said, “Look how I dare to talk to my Lord! What if you find twenty there?” He said, “I will not destroy it, for the sake of those twenty.”
32 Yet again he said, “My Lord, do not grow impatient if I speak still another time; what if ten are found there?” He answered, “I will not destroy it, for the sake of the ten.” 33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he went on his way, and Abraham returned to his tent.
Chapter 19
Revelation of God the Judge.[f] 1 The two angels arrived in Sodom toward the evening. Lot was seated at the gate to Sodom. As soon as he saw them, Lot got up and went over to them and bowed down to the ground. 2 He said, “My lords, come to the house of your servant. Pass the night, wash your feet, and then, in the morning, you can go on your way.”
They answered, “No, we will spend the night in the town square.”
3 But he insisted so much that they went with him to his house. He prepared a banquet for them, making unleavened bread,[g] and they ate their meal. 4 But before they went to bed, the men of the city, the inhabitants of Sodom, gathered around the house, the young and the old, all of them without exception. 5 They called out to Lot and said, “Where are those men who are staying with you tonight? Make them come out to us so that we can know them!”[h]
6 Lot went out to them at the door and, after closing the door behind himself, 7 said, “No, my brothers, do not do this evil thing! 8 Listen, I have two daughters who have not yet known a man; let me bring them outside and you can do whatever you want with them. Just do not do anything to these men, for they have entered under the shelter of my roof.”
9 But they answered, “Move out of the way. This one has come into our midst as a foreigner and he would dare to judge us! Now we are going to treat you even worse than them.” And they so violently pushed against Lot that they almost broke open the door. 10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, closing the door. 11 They struck all of those who were standing outside the door with blindness so that none of them could find the door.
12 The men then said to Lot, “Who else do you have here? Your sons-in-law, your sons, and your daughters, and anyone that you have in the city, bring them out of this place 13 for we are ready to destroy this place. The complaint raised against them before the Lord is great, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
14 Lot left to speak to his sons-in-law, the men who were to marry his daughters, and he said, “Get up, let us go from this place, for 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, “Get up, take your wife and the two daughters who are here and leave before you are caught up in the punishment of this city.”
16 Lot hesitated, but the men took him by the hand, along with his wife and his two daughters. They showed him the mercy of the Lord by bringing him out and leading him out of the city. 17 After they had led him out, one of them said, “Flee for your life. Do not look back and do not stop while you are still in the valley. Flee to the mountains lest you be swept away.”
18 But Lot replied, “No, my lord! 19 Look, your servant has found favor in your sight, and now you have shown even greater mercy to me by saving my life. Yet, I will not be able to flee to the mountains to keep the disaster from overtaking me. I will die. 20 Look at this city ahead. It is close enough for me to reach, and it is so small! Let me flee there. It is such a small place. That way my life will be saved.”
21 He answered, “Behold, I will grant you even this, that I will not destroy the city of which you have spoken. 22 Hurry, flee there because I cannot do anything until you have arrived.” For this reason the city is called Zoar.
23 The sun was rising when Lot arrived in Zoar. 24 The Lord then rained sulfur and fire from the heavens upon Sodom and Gomorrah. 25 He destroyed these cities and the entire valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and even the plants in the soil. 26 But the wife of Lot looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Abraham went out early in the morning to the place where he had been with the Lord. 28 He looked down from the height on Sodom and Gomorrah and the entire extension of the valley, and he saw smoke rising out of the earth, like the smoke coming out of a furnace.
29 Thus God, who destroyed the cities of the valley, remembered Abraham and had Lot flee from the disaster, while he destroyed the cities in which Lot had been living.
30 Degeneration of Lot’s Children.[i] Lot then left Zoar and went to live in the mountains together with his two daughters, for they were afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31 The older one said to the younger one, “Our father is getting old and there is no one in this territory to marry us as happens all over the earth. 32 Come, we will give wine to our father and then lie with him; thus we will provide descendants for our father.”
33 That night they gave wine to their father, and the older sister laid with her father. He did not realize what was happening, not even when she lay down or when she got out of bed. 34 The next day the older sister said to the younger, “Behold, yesterday I slept with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight as well and you can sleep with him. Thus, we will provide descendants for our father.” 35 That night as well they made their father drink wine, and the younger sister slept with him. He did not realize what had happened, not even when she lay down or when she got out of bed.
36 Thus, the two daughters of Lot conceived children for their father. 37 The older sister gave birth to a son whom she called Moab, “from my father.” He is the forefather of the present-day Moabites. 38 The younger sister also gave birth to a son, and she called him Ben Ammi, “son of my people.” He is the forefather of the present-day Ammonites.
Footnotes
- Genesis 18:1 Chapters 18–19 are from the Yahwist tradition and might be entitled “The meaning of the covenant.” Three individuals appear before Abraham; he receives them with an act of homage. “He saw three but worshiped the One,” said the Fathers of the Church, who saw here a prefiguration of the Trinity.
- Genesis 18:6 Three seahs: a dry measure that equaled about one ephah.
- Genesis 18:8 Curds: a kind of soft cheese.
- Genesis 18:10 The Lord: literally, “he.”
- Genesis 18:16 For the first time in the Bible God’s justice is questioned; trusting in the Lord, Abraham begins to try to bend it. The sacred writer, like his contemporaries, is convinced that members of one and the same group have a joint responsibility as well as the same destiny, but he thinks that ten righteous persons can save an entire city. The prophets Jeremiah (Jer 5:1) and Ezekiel (Ezek 22:30) will claim that a single righteous person is enough. Abraham, however, does not feel able to push his request any further; perhaps there were no truly righteous persons in the city.
- Genesis 19:1 The story probably reflects memories of fires in naphtha deposits in this region and of earthquakes that caused collapses in the area south of the Dead Sea. It also draws on legends created by the popular imagination that had been struck by the desolate landscape there, with its sulfur-infected air and its odd blocks of salt in the shape of statues.
- Genesis 19:3 Unleavened bread could be prepared more quickly than bread that had to rise.
- Genesis 19:5 Homosexuality, which was widespread among the Canaanites, was sternly prohibited by the Mosaic Law (Lev 18:22, 24; 20:13, 23; Jdg 19:22).
- Genesis 19:30 Since it was regarded as a dishonor and a curse not to have children, the daughters, being without husbands, make up for their state by a primitive makeshift. It is in this way that the story explains the origin of the Moabites and Ammonites, neighbors and enemies of Israel, who are remembered as being the fruit of the cursed cities. The condemnation of incest is implicit in the story, not only because it was condemned by the laws of Mesopotamia and the conscience of the time but also because Lot is made drunk in order to prevent his resistance (see also Lev 18:7).
