spare_ them for ten’s sake? Thereupon he was assured that if only ten righteous souls could be found the cities should be spared. While he was thus pleading with God, the two other angels entered Sodom, and were hospitably entertained by Lot. But their celestial beauty only served to excite the wickedness of the inhabitants, who surrounded Lot’s house, and, in spite of his earnest expostulations, would have offered them personal violence had they not been suddenly stricken with blindness. As the night wore on, his visitors assured Lot of the certain destruction of the city, and warned him to gather together with all speed every member of his family if he would save them from the impending judgment. Lot did as he was advised; but his warning was lost upon his sons-in-law and his daughters-in-law, and he seemed unto them _as one that mocked_. When the day dawned, the angels broke off any further delay by laying hold on him, and his wife, and his two daughters, and having dragged them forth beyond the city, bade them flee to the neighbouring mountain range if they would not be consumed. But thither Lot was afraid to flee, and in compliance with his urgent entreaty was permitted to betake himself to the town of Bela, or Zoar (_Little_), on the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. The sun rose as he entered this city of refuge, and then _the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire out of heaven_, and utterly swept away by an awful convulsion every trace of the guilty cities and their inhabitants, the site of which became henceforth a perpetual desolation. Few as were the remnants of this fearful overthrow, yet one of these few failed to reach the little city of refuge. In spite of the Angel’s reiterated warning, Lot’s wife lingered, looked back, and, caught by the advancing sulphurous tide, was smothered as she stood, and became a _pillar of salt_ (Gen. xix. 26; Lk. xvii. 32). As for Lot himself, afraid to dwell even in Zoar, he fled with his two daughters to the eastern mountains, and became the father of two sons, Moab and Ben-Ammi, the ancestors of two powerful nations――the Moabites and Ammonites.