When Loth's wife, his bride in the city, heard the din of fire, the death of the people, then she looked back- ward [to see] this devastation. The Scriptures tell us that she immediately turned into the likeness of a pillar of salt: ever since then this statue has stood there 2565 motion less (this is a strange story), where she incurred this severe penalty because she would not obey the ministers of glory in their commands: now, stiff and erect, she will have to await her doom in that place, at 2570 the Lord's Judgment Day, when the world has com- pleted its [allotted] number of years. This is one of the miracles which the King of Glory has wrought. XXXI. Then Abraham went forth alone, at dawn, so that he 2575 again stood in the place where the pious leader had formerly spoken with his Lord in words. He saw the reek of death and destruction ascending widely from the earth. Riches and feasting preoccupied [the people] to such an extent that they had become bold in wicked 2580 deeds, eager for sin: they forgot the Truth and God's commandments, and who had given them prosperity and wealth in their cities; therefore the King of the Angels sent his fervid fire to punish them. Our faithful 2585 Lord then remembered Abraham mercifully, the dear man, as he often had done, and saved his kinsman, Loth, when the multitude perished. The [latter] hero, famed for his deeds, did not dare to tarry longer in the strong- 2590 hold for fear of the Lord, but Loth departed from the city with his children to seek a dwelling-place far from the place of slaughter, until they found a cave in the side of a high dune: there the pious Loth, dear to his 2595 Lord, dwelt in righteousness for a great number of days, with his two daughters....[35] They did thus with the drunken man: ... the elder of the two went first to her father's bed. Nor did the 2600 venerable man know when the two maidens ... were with him in the manner of a bride, fast bound [as he was] in heart, mind, and memory, drunken with wine, 2605 so that he could not escape the enterprise of the maidens. The young women became pregnant, and the devoted sisters brought men-children into the world, sons to their old father. One of these noble children was called Moab by his mother, that daughter of Loth who was the 2610 elder in years of life; the Scriptures tell us, the sacred Books, that the younger called her son Ammon. From these princes sprang numberless people, the glories of 2615 two nations: one of these nations all earth-dwellers call Moabites, a widely famed race; the other, men and sons of heroes call Ammonites. XXXII.