Genesis Chapter 19 v.1-38

Last chapter had god appearing to Abraham on the way to Sodom, and he had two henchmen with him. This chapter follows the journey of just the two henchmen into Sodom. I don't know what to make of that. Maybe god got lost and the angel-henchmen just went without him. Anyway, here we go:

The two angels got to Sodom that evening, and Lot saw them come in because he was sitting at the front gate of the city, for some reason. He asked them to come to his place, and wash their feet, and stay the night, and they could leave early in the morning, you know, before the crazies got up and going.

The angels told him they wanted to stay in the town square for the night.

Lot, imagining disaster, asked them again, beseeched even, that they stay with him. Finally the angels acquiesced.

So they ate dinner together, god knows what they talked about:
"so. . .sodom. seems nice."
"yeah. . . i guess. . ."

Before they all turned in for the night, men from all over the town came by, young and old, to ask Lot if their guests wanted to participate in any of the number of orgies they had planned for that night. Which I suppose is considerate. Not like they had tv. They told Lot they wanted to have sex with these newcomers. Kind of like a welcome wagon.

Lot went out and shut the door behind him, and told the randy townsfolk that they shouldn't "do this wicked thing." Sex with angels?!? Come on, it'll be great! No, replied Lot, I don't even think they can. They're angels. Aw come on! They replied. (I'm taking liberties here.)

Finally Lot offered up both his unwed (so I assume, teenaged) daughters for the orgies, saying, "'Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them'" but the angels are off limits, because they are under my protection. You know, unlike my daughters. It'll save me having to give the whole birds and bees lecture, anyway.

The randy townsfolk told Lot to step aside, and took offense at him calling their well organized orgies "wicked." Here's this guy that isn't even FROM here, and he wants to tell us how to live! And won't let us explore our sexuality with his angel buddies! Pshaw! He needs to get laid!

In this manner they cajoled and pressured Lot, and even thought about a plan to break down his door. While this was going on, the 'men' (I suppose they mean angels) pulled Lot back inside the house and shut the door, then handily afflicted the randy townsfolk with blindness (one could say they were on their way there, the dirty beggars!) so that they "could not find the door."

The angels explained that they were in Sodom as sort of a fact-finding mission of sin, and that the outcry against the sin seemed to be in order, so Lot should get together his family, etc. and get the fuck out of dodge. Cause Sodom was going down. And not in the way the randy townsfolk thought.

So Lot told his family, and even told the men who were pledged to marry his daughters (I don't think he told them about offering their brides-to-be up for a gang rape, do you?) but those guys laughed at him.

So it was Lot, his wife and two daughters, who still hesitated to leave, but the angels led them out of the town anyway. The angels (hitmen, I guess) told the four the keep going, and don't look back, and don't stop until you get the the mountains.

Lot looked at the far away mountains and asked the hitmen if he couldn't just stop at that small town, much closer. His knees were giving him trouble lately. The angels said that would be okay.

Lot reached Zoar, the little town, right after sunrise, and that's when "the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah". So god destroyed the cities, everyone in the cities, and even all the vegetation around the cities. And, as an afterthought, the author tells us that Lot's wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.

Abraham went out to the hill the next morning and saw the rubble and the smoke pouring from the two cities. He had saved his nephew for a second time.

So Lot and his daughters went into the mountains and lived in a cave. My thinking is that Lot was very crazy by this time. And who can blame him? His daughters, it transpired, were crazier still.

So there they were, living in a cave, and one day one of the daughters says to the other, Not really 'raining men' around here is it? What are we going to do for children? Lie with our father??!? Then I'm sure they laughed mightily. But after a while, when the crazy set in, it didn't seem like a bad idea after all (eugh!).

So they got Lot drunk on wine, cave wine I guess, and they both lay with him, and they both became pregnant. The author wants us to know that Lot had no idea what was going on because he was passed out drunk. And so begins the old saw about people living in the mountains committing incest, I suppose.

The author doesn't mention what Lot did when he found out his daughters were pregnant, nor who he thought the father was, but the two daughters both had sons, and their lineages became the Moabites and the Ammonites "of today." So if you're a member of either of those nations, reading this story would probably piss you off.