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13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman,(A) they have committed an abomination; the two of them shall be put to death; their bloodguilt is upon them.

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(A)Before they went to bed, the townsmen of Sodom, both young and old—all the people to the last man—surrounded the house. They called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have sexual relations with them.” Lot went out to meet them at the entrance. When he had shut the door behind him, he said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not do this wicked thing! I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with men. Let me bring them out to you,[a] and you may do to them as you please. But do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” They replied, “Stand back! This man,” they said, “came here as a resident alien, and now he dares to give orders! We will treat you worse than them!” With that, they pressed hard against Lot, moving in closer to break down the door.(B) 10 But his guests put out their hands, pulled Lot inside with them, and closed the door; 11 they struck the men at the entrance of the house, small and great, with such a blinding light[b] that they were utterly unable to find the doorway.

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Footnotes

  1. 19:8 Let me bring them out to you: the authority of a patriarch within his house was virtually absolute. Lot’s extreme response of offering his daughters to a violent mob seems to be motivated by the obligation of hospitality.
  2. 19:11 Blinding light: an extraordinary flash that temporarily dazed the wicked men and revealed to Lot the true nature of his guests.

The Outrage at Gibeah. 22 [a](A)While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the city, a bunch of scoundrels, surrounded the house and beat on the door. They said to the old man who was the owner of the house, “Bring out the man who has come into your house, so that we may get intimate with him.” 23 The man who was the owner of the house went out to them and said, “No, my brothers; do not be so wicked. This man has come into my house; do not commit this terrible crime. 24 Instead, let me bring out my virgin daughter and this man’s concubine. Humiliate them, or do whatever you want; but against him do not commit such a terrible crime.” 25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and thrust her outside to them. They raped her and abused her all night until morning, and let her go as the sun was coming up. 26 At the approach of morning the woman came and collapsed at the entrance of the house in which her husband was, and lay there until morning. 27 When her husband rose in the morning and opened the door of the house to start out again on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, collapsed at the entrance of the house with her hands on the threshold. 28 “Come, let us go,” he said to her, but there was no answer. So the man placed her on a donkey and started out again for home.

29 [b]On reaching home, he got a knife and took hold of the body of his concubine. He cut her up limb by limb into twelve pieces and sent them throughout the territory of Israel.(B) 30 He instructed the men whom he sent, “Thus you shall say to all the men of Israel: ‘Has such a thing ever happened from the day the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt to this day?[c](C) Take note of it; form a plan and give orders.’”

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Footnotes

  1. 19:22–25 This part of the grim story closely parallels that of the assault on Lot’s angelic visitors in Gn 19:4–8.
  2. 19:29 The Levite’s gruesome way of summoning the tribes is a drastic version of that used by Saul in 1 Sm 11:7, where he dismembers a yoke of oxen.
  3. 19:30 Has such a thing ever happened…?: the outrage became a byword in Israel, so that in the eighth century the prophet Hosea could invoke “the days of Gibeah” (Hos 9:9; cf. 10:9) to signify corruption and wrongdoing.

27 and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.(A)

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[a]Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes[b] nor sodomites(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 6:9–10 A catalogue of typical vices that exclude from the kingdom of God and that should be excluded from God’s church. Such lists (cf. 1 Cor 5:10) reflect the common moral sensibility of the New Testament period.
  2. 6:9 The Greek word translated as boy prostitutes may refer to catamites, i.e., boys or young men who were kept for purposes of prostitution, a practice not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. In Greek mythology this was the function of Ganymede, the “cupbearer of the gods,” whose Latin name was Catamitus. The term translated sodomites refers to adult males who indulged in homosexual practices with such boys. See similar condemnations of such practices in Rom 1:26–27; 1 Tm 1:10.