The Story of Sodom and Gomorra

Genesis 18:20-19:26

In school, Beth learned about a big earthquake and fire that destroyed San Francisco many years ago. Her teacher talked about how many people died horrible, painful, lingering, suffocating and burning deaths or were crushed under huge falling objects.
After dinner that night, Beth went to the couch where her mother was doing a needlepoint of tongues of flame falling out of the sky onto a group of people. Beth sat next to her mother on the couch and asked a question. "Does God only kill bad people with earthquakes, or does he kill good people, too?" she asked.
"Abraham, the man we have talked about before, asked a question just like that," her mother said, putting her needlework aside. "Here, let me tell you a story about that."
And this is the story she told:

One day, God heard that the people in Sodom and Gomorra were evil, so he decided to send two angels into the city to see if that was true.

"Why did God have to send angels?" Beth asked, interrupting. "He didn't have to send angels to check if the whole world was bad before he killed everything with the flood, so why would he need help just to check one city? Besides, I thought that God already knew everything?"
"God does know everything, Dear One," said Beth's mother. "That's called 'omnipotence.' The reason that he didn't have to send angels to check if the whole world was bad before the flood is that there were not a whole lot of people in the world at that time. By the time of this story, the world was very full."
"But if God is animpotent, why doesn't he already know whether the people are bad?" asked Beth.
"He does, Dear One, but doing little jobs for God helps the angels stay busy."

When Abraham found out that God was thinking about smooshing the city, Abraham asked God, "Are you going to kill the good people when you kill the bad people? If there are even fifty good people in the city, will you leave it alone? It would not be right to kill both bad and good people."
God answered, "If I find even fifty good people in Sodom, then I will leave it alone for them."
"Well," said Abraham, "what if there are only forty-five good people? Will you smoosh the city because there were not five more?"
"I will not smoosh it if there are forty-five good people," God said.
"What if there are forty?"
"I will leave the city alone the city for forty people."
"Now don't get mad, but what if there are thirty?"
"I will not smoosh it if there are thirty good people."
"As long as we are on the subject, what if there are twenty?"
"Then I will not smoosh the city because of the twenty good people."
"Please don't be upset, but what if there are ten?"
"I will not smoosh the city if there are ten good people."
Then God left.
When God's two angels got to Sodom, they found a man named Lot sitting near the gate of the city. When Lot saw the angels, he got up, bowed, and invited them to stay at his house. He promised to wash their feet and give them a nice place to sleep.
"Oh, no," said the angels. "We'll sleep in the street tonight." But Lot was very insistent.

Beth interrupted her mother saying, "Father says that people sleeping in the street are dirty, smelly, lazy, good-for-nothing, shiftless, dishonest, never-did-an-honest-day's-work-in-their-lives bums. Does he mean angels, too?"
"No Dear One," answered her mother.

So the angels went with Lot to his house. Lot made them a big dinner, including flat bread, which the angels ate. But before it was the angels bed time, every man who lived in Sodom -- no matter how old or young -- came to Lot's house and surrounded it.
Then the people surrounding the house began to shout, "Where are the men who came to visit you, Lot? Send them out so that we can have sex with them."
Hearing this, Lot went outside and shut the door behind him. He said, "Please, brothers, be nice. Look, I have two daughters who have never had a penis put in them. Let me bring them out and you can play what ever kind of penis games you like with them so long as you do not harm my guests."
The men answered, "Out of our way, Lot. You won't make any deals with us." And the men began to crowd the house so much that Lot was squished against the door.
The angels, seeing what was happening, pulled Lot into the house and closed the door. Then they made all the men outside the front door blind so that the men couldn't find their way into the house. When they were done doing that, the angels said, "Is there anyone in your family other than your son-in-law, your sons, and your daughters? If there is, take them out of the city because we are going to smoosh the town due to all the evil in it."
Lot took the angels' advice and tried to warn his family, but his sons-in-law thought that he was crazy.
In the morning, the angels tried to get Lot to hurry, saying, "Take your wife and two daughters who live with you and get out of town or you will be killed when the city is smooshed." But when they saw that Lot wasn't hurrying enough, they grabbed him and his wife and put them outside the city saying, "Run for your life! Head for the hills and don't look back!"
Lot said to them, "I appreciate your saving my life, but I can't run to the mountains because it's dangerous there. Can't I just run to another town?"
"All right," said the angels. "Run to the town of Zoar."
Then God sent fire and hot rocks raining down on Sodom and Gomorra, smooshing them, their inhabitants, and the land the cities were build on.
But Lot's wife looked back at the smooshing when she should have been running, and God turned her into a big piece of salt.

"We can learn three lessons from the story of Sodom and Gomorra," said Beth's mother. "First, it teaches us that God only punishes the wicked, so all those people killed in San Francisco must have been very wicked indeed. Second, a girl child is nothing compared to the value of a male stranger."
"But wasn't it nasty of Lot to want to send his daughters out into the nasty crowd?" Beth asked. "Didn't he love them?"
"Of course he loved his daughters, Dear One," said Beth's mother soothingly. "If Lot had thought that it would be bad for his daughters to let every man in town put his penis in them, I'm sure that he wouldn't even have suggested it."
"But what if the daughters didn't want to go?" asked Beth, squirming uncomfortably.
"Ah," said her mother, "that brings us to the third lesson of the story: if you do not obey your betters, God will have to kill you. That's why Lot's wife got turned into salt for disobeying the angels."
Beth thought about this for a moment.
"What happened to Abraham?" Beth asked. "He was at the beginning of the story and then he never showed up again."
"Abraham was just being nosy, Dear One," answered her mother. "He really didn't have anything to do with the story of Lot."
Then Beth smiled and hugged her mother. All her questions had been answered.