Sodom and Gomorrah
Abraham bargains with God to spare Sodom, but the wicked cities are destroyed while Lot and his daughters escape.
When the LORD revealed His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their great wickedness, Abraham stood before Him and began one of Scripture's most remarkable prayers of intercession. 'Will You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?' Abraham asked boldly. He bargained with God, asking if fifty righteous people lived in the city, would He spare it? The LORD agreed. Abraham continued, reducing the number to forty-five, then forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten. Each time, God promised to spare the city for the sake of the righteous.
That evening, two angels arrived in Sodom and found Lot sitting in the city gate. Lot insisted they stay at his house rather than spend the night in the city square. Before they retired for the night, the men of Sodom surrounded Lot's house, demanding he bring out his guests so they could abuse them. The angels struck the mob with blindness and pulled Lot back inside.
The angels urged Lot to gather his family and flee, for the LORD was about to destroy the city. Lot warned his sons-in-law, but they thought he was joking. As dawn broke, the angels seized Lot, his wife, and his two daughters by the hands and led them out. 'Flee for your lives!' the angels commanded. 'Don't look back!'
As the sun rose and Lot reached Zoar, the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah. He overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all who lived there. But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning, Abraham looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. Though the cities were destroyed, God remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the catastrophe.