Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/184

162 this people; he has housed travellers, and will feed them and show them all courtesy."

Therefore the men of the city came tumultuously to the door of Lot's house, to bring forth the men that were come to him, and to cast them out of the city, having shamefully entreated them. They would not listen to the remonstrances of Lot, but went near to break in his door.

Then the three angels stepped forth and passed their hands over the faces of all who drew near, and they were struck blind, and fled from their presence. Now, long before the day began to break, the angels rose up and called Lot, his wife and daughters, and bade them take their clothes and all that they had that was most precious, and escape out of the city. Therefore Lot and his family went forth.

And when they were escaped, the angel Gabriel went through the cities, and passed his wing over the soil on which they were built, and the cities were carried up into heaven; and they came so near thereto that those on the confines of heaven could hear the crowing of the cocks in Sodom, and the barking of the dogs in Gomorrah. And then they were overthrown, so that their foundations were towards the sky and their roofs towards the earth. And God rained on them stones heated in the fire of Hell; and on each stone was written the name of him whom it was destined to slay. Now there were many natives of these accursed cities in other parts of the land, and where they were, there they were sought out by the red-hot stones, and were struck down. But some were within the sacred enclosure of the temple at Mecca, and the stones waited for them in the air; and at the expiration of forty days they came forth, and as they came forth the stones whistled through the air, and smote them, and they were slain.

Now Lot's wife turned, as she went forth, to look back upon the city, and a stone fell on her, and she died.

It is related further of Lot that, after he had escaped, he committed in ignorance a very great sin; and Abraham sent him to expiate his crime to the sources of the Nile, to fetch thence three sorts of wood, which he named to him. Abraham thought, "He will be slain by ravenous beasts, and so will he atone for the sin that he has committed."