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this judgment." And the Lord said to him: "If I find in Sodom fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake." And Abraham`answered, and said: "Seeing I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes. What if there be five less than fifty just persons? wilt Thou for five and forty destroy the whole city?" And He said: "I will not destroy it if I find five and forty." And again he said to Him: "But if forty be found there, what wilt Thou do? He said: "I will not destroy it for the sake of forty." "Lord," saith he, "be not angry, I beseech Thee, if I speak: What if thirty shall be found there?" He answered: "I will not do it if I find thirty there." "Seeing," saith he, "I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord: What if twenty be found there?" He said: "I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty." "I beseech Thee," saith he, "be not angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more: What if ten should be found there?" And He said: "I will not destroy it for the sake of ten." And the Lord departed after He had left speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.

§ 7. The Destruction by Fire from Heaven of Sodom and Gomorrha. Lot saved by the Angels.

Toward evening the two angels came to Sodom, and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city. When he saw them, he rose up to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground before them, and said: "I beseech you, my lords, turn in to the house of your

servant and lodge there, wash your feet, and in the morning you shall go your way." And they said: "No; but we will abide in the street." He pressed them very much to come into his house; and when they were come in, he made them a feast, and baked. unleavened bread. Before they went to rest, the men of the city beset the house, both young and old, and all the people together. And they called Lot, and said: "Where are the men that came in unto thee at night? bring them out." Lot went out to them and shut the door after him, and said: "I beseech you, my brethren, commit no evil." And they said: "Get thee back: thou camest in as a stranger, and wilt thou make thyself a judge? we will afflict thee more. than them." And behold the angels put out their hands and drew in Lot to them, and shut the door; and all that were without in the street they struck with blindness, so that they could not find the door.

Then they said to Lot: "Hast thou here any of thine, son-in-law, or sons or daughters? all that are thine bring them out of this city. For we will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them." Lot upon this went out to speak to his sons-in-law that were to have married his daughters, and said: "Arise, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city." But he seemed to them to speak as it were in jest.

And when it was morning the angels pressed him, saying: "Arise, take thy wife and the two daughters which thou hast, lest thou also perish in the

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wickedness of the city." And as he lingered, they took his hand and the hand of his wife and of his two daughters, because the Lord spared him. And they brought him forth and set him without the city, and there they spoke to him, saying: "Save thy life; look not back, neither stay thou in all the country about, but save thyself to the mountain, lest thou also be consumed." And Lot said to them: "I beseech Thee, my Lord, because Thy servant hath found grace before Thee, and Thou hast magnified Thy mercy in saving my life, behold, I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil seize me and I die. See, there is a city near at hand to which I may flee; is it not a little one?" And He said to him: "Behold, also in this I have heard thy prayers, not to destroy the city for which thou hast spoken. Make haste and be saved there, for I cannot do any thing until thou go in thither."

The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Segor. And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire out of heaven; and He destroyed these cities, and all the country round about, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all the things that spring up from the earth. And Lot's wife, looking behind her, was turned into a pillar of salt.*

* In the next page is a drawing of a pillar of salt, discovered in the expedition of Lieutenant Lynch, of the U. S. navy. It was well known in Solomon's time (Wisd. vii. 10). Speaking of the destruction of Sodom: "Whose land, for a testimony of their wickedness, is desolate, and smoketh to this day; and the trees bear fruits that ripen not; and a standing pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul." In our Saviour's life-time, also, the monument appears to have been

And Abraham rose up early in the morning; and from the place where he had stood before with the Lord

he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrha and the whole land of that country, and he saw the ashes rise up from the earth as the smoke of a furnace.

well known, as it was likely to be, being not much more than about forty miles from Jerusalem. He refers to the event at least as one well known: "Be mindful of Lot's wife." Josephus also says that he had himself seen the pillar.

BIRTH OF ISAAC..

§ 8. Isaac is born (B.C. 2082), and Agar and Ismael are cast forth.

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And the Lord visited Sara as He had promised, and she became the mother of a son in her old age, at the time that God had foretold to her. And Abraham called the name of his son Isaac (signifying joy, or the laughter of joy); and he circumcised him on the eighth day, according to the covenant. And the child grew and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day of his weaning.

And when Sara had seen Ismael, the son of Agar the Egyptian, playing with Isaac her own son, she said to Abraham: "Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son Isaac." And Abraham was grieved for his son Ismael. And God said to him: "Let it not seem grievous to thee for the boy and for thy bondwoman. In all that Sara hath said to thee hearken to her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. But I will make the son also of the bondwoman a great nation, because he is thy son." So Abraham rose up in the morning; and taking bread and a bottle of water, he called Agar; and when he had put it upon her shoulder, he delivered the boy to her and sent her away.

Agar departed, and wandered for some time in the wilderness of Bersabee. And when the water in the bottle was spent, she cast the boy under one of the trees that were there, and she went away and sat over against him a great way, as far as a bow can carry ; for she said: "I will not see the boy die;" and sit

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