In the city of Ur, in the country of Chaldea, there lived a man called Abraham. His wife's name was Sarah. One day God said to Abraham: 

     'I want you to leave Ur and go far away to the country of Cannan. If you do as I say, I will make you the father of a great nation.'

      Now Abraham and Sarah had no children. But they believed God and did as he said. They took lot, Abraham's nephew, and their servants, their flocks and their herds, and they left Ur. They left their family and home and friends- all the people and places they knew so well- and set out for an unknown land.

     Travel was slow, and the journey to Canaan a long one, but at last they arrived. They set up their tents at Mamre, near Hebron, and for a long time they all lived happily together. But as the herds of  cattle and flocks of sheep increased there was quarrels between the men who looked after Abraham's cattle and the men who looked after Lot's.

    So Abraham and Lot decided it was time to part. Abraham let Lot choose where he wanted to go. Lot decided to move down from the hills into the green valley of the River Jordan close to the town of Sodom. There he would have plenty of water and good grass for his flocks. Lot moved off. This meant that Abraham had to stay up on the hills, where there wasn't much water and the grass was thin and brown.

    But although the valley looked good, Lot had made the wrong choice. The people who lived in Sodom were proud and greedy and lazy; they were hard, cruel and violent. Terrible things were done in Sodom and no more was sorry or ashamed.

    But God is just. He will not turn a blind eye to those who deliberately do wrong. The city of Sodom deserved to be punished.

    One hot midday, when Abraham was resting in the shade of his tent, he saw three strangers coming towards him. He went to greet them and invited them to rest and eat with him in his tent. There was a great hurry and scurry as Sarah and the servants set to work. They baked fresh bread and roasted a calf, and offered this to the visitors, with bowls of milk and cheese. 

   When the meal was finished , the men explained why they had come. Abraham and Sarah had grown old by this time, God had good news for them. Very soon the son they longed for would be born. How surprised and pleased they were!

   But what the men said next made them sad. God said that Sodom, the town where Lot now lived, was going to be destroyed. 

   The only good people in Sodom were Lot and his family. So God sent his messengers to warn Lot to escape before it was too late.

   But Lot's family did not want to leave Sodom. Only just in time, God's messengers hurried them all to safety outside the town. They had not gone far before there was a great rumbling. 

  The ground trembled and shook. Fire and ash rained down on Sodom and the nearby towns and villages. The air was full of dust. But still Lot's wife would not hurry. She stopped to look, and was killed. Only Lot and his two daughters escaped. God had saved their lives.