Escape Before Dawn

12Then the men said to Lot, “Who else do you have here? A son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and everyone who belongs to you in the city—bring them out of the place.”

13For we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become great before Yahweh, and Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.

14So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place, because Yahweh is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

15And as dawn was rising, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.”

16But he lingered, so the men seized his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, because of Yahweh’s compassion for him; and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

17And as they brought them outside, he said, “Escape for your life. Do not look behind you, and do not stop anywhere in the plain. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”

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

19Look, please, your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have made great your steadfast love that you have shown me by preserving my life. But I cannot escape to the mountain, lest the disaster overtake me and I die.

20Look, please, this city is near enough to flee there, and it is small. Please let me escape there—is it not small? Then my life will live.

21And he said to him, “Look, I grant you this request also: I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.”

22Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar.