Now, people who think only of themselves, and take the best without regard to others, sometimes get the worst. And this is very likely to be the case with those who choose that which is easy instead of that which is hard. So it was with Lot. The plain was not so pleasant as he thought. It had once been the bed of a salt sea, and in some places the salt lay upon the ground, and there were salt springs. And near by there was a dreadful swamp where the mud was mixed with oil. Before Lot had been long at Sodom,--for this was the name of the town in which he lived,--there came four kings with long names and fierce soldiers, and they drove the people out of their houses, and back into the swamp, and they captured them and carried them away. Abraham, when he heard of it, took all his herdsmen, and armed them with swords and clubs, and they attacked the four kings by night when they were asleep, and rescued Lot and his neighbors. But it was all very unpleasant for Lot. The people of Sodom had never been good people, but after this they were worse than ever. It troubled Lot greatly. Sometimes he thought of moving away, but his wife liked the place, and so did their two daughters: so he stayed. He reproved his bad neighbors, but that did no good; he only made himself unpopular. At last, one hot day, as Abraham sat in the door of his tent under the shade of the oaks, he saw three men coming. And he rose up and ran to meet them, for he was very kind to strangers. “Come,” he said, “and rest here in the cool shade, and my wife shall get you something to eat.” So the strangers stopped, and Sarah made a fire and baked some cakes and broiled some meat, and brought out curds and whey, and set the table. And after supper, the men looked towards Sodom, and one of them said, “What kind of a place is that? We hear sad things about it.” And Abraham said, “I have a nephew who lives there, and he tells me that it is a very wicked place indeed.” And the men said, “We are going to see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears.” So they went on down the road to Sodom. Now, when they came to the town, there was Lot sitting by the gate, and he was glad to see them, and took them to his house and was very nice to them. But that night, when Lot’s neighbors found that he had company, they came about the house, a great crowd of them, hooting and throwing stones, and tried to break in the door to kill them. So the strangers saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears.