Genesis 19:24-29·~1 min

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

The LORD rains down destruction on the cities and the plain, wiping out their inhabitants and growth. As Lot escapes, his wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt.

T²⁴hen the LORD rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah — from the LORD out of the heavens. ²⁵Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground. ²⁶But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Abraham returns to the place where he had stood before the LORD and sees smoke rising over the land. The chapter explains Lot’s rescue as God’s remembrance of Abraham amid the destruction.

²⁷Early the next morning, Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. ²⁸He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw the smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace. ²⁹So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham, and He brought Lot out of the catastrophe that destroyed the cities where he had lived.

Section summaryThe LORD destroys Sodom, Gomorrah, and the whole plain with fire and sulfur from heaven. Yet even within that judgment the chapter keeps a smaller line in view: Lot’s wife is lost when she looks back, Abraham sees the smoke from a distance, and Lot is spared because God remembers Abraham.

Role in the chapterThis section delivers the judgment long announced while tying it back to the previous chapter’s intercession. It frames the catastrophe from both near and far, through the loss inside Lot’s household and the memory of Abraham before God.