X. God’s messengers go to Sodom. Lot is sitting alone at the “door of his lodge.” Staring into the street he sees two men. Beardless chins they had, and hair like raw silk. Beautifully white were their weeds. Lot runs to meet them. Invites them to remain awhile in his house, and in the morning they may take their way. Lot invites them so long that at last they comply. The wife and daughters of Lot welcome their visitors. Lot admonishes his men to prepare the meat, and to serve no salt with it. Lot’s wife disregards the injunction. The guests are well entertained. But before they go to rest the city is up in arms. With “keen clubs” the folk clatter on the walls, and demand that Lot should deliver up his guests. The wind yet stinks with their filthy speech. Lot is in great trouble. He leaves his guests and addresses the Sodomites. He offers to give up to them his two daughters. The rebels raise a great noise, and ask who made him a justice to judge their deeds, who was but a boy when he came to Sodom. The young men bring Lot within doors, and smite those outside with blindness. In vain they try to find the door of Lot’s house. XI. Early in the morning the angels command Lot to depart from Sodom, with his wife and two daughters, and to look straight before him, for Sodom and Gomorrah shall be destroyed. Lot asks what is best to be done, that he may escape. He is told to choose himself a dwelling which shall be saved from destruction. He chooses Zoar. The angels command Lot to depart quickly. He wakes his wife and daughters. All four are hastened on by the angels, who “preach to them the peril” of delay. Before daylight Lot comes to a hill. God aloft raises a storm. A rain falls thick of fire and sulphur. Upon the four cities it comes, and frightens all folks therein. The great bars of the abyss do burst. Cliffs cleave asunder. The cities sink to hell. Such a cry arises that the clouds clatter again. Lot and his companions are frightened, but continue to follow their face. Lot’s wife looks behind her, and is turned to a stiff stone “as salt as any sea.” Her companions do not miss her till they reach Zoar. By this time all were drowned. The people of Zoar, for dread, rush into the sea and are destroyed. Only Zoar with three therein (Lot and his daughters) are saved. Lot’s wife is an image of salt for two faults: 1. She served salt before the Lord at supper. 2. She looked behind her. Abraham is up full early on the morn. He looks towards Sodom, now only a pit filled with pitch, from which rise smoke, ashes and cinders, as from a furnace. A sea now occupies the place of the four cities. It is a stinking pool, and is called the Dead Sea. Nothing may live in it. Lead floats on its surface. A feather sinks to the bottom of it. Lands, watered by this sea, never bear grass or weed. A man cannot be drowned in it. The clay clinging to it is corrosive, as alum, alkaran, sulphur, etc., which fret the flesh and fester the bones.