very great and high, but it was never finished. The people did
wickedly in building it, and God, who saw all they were doing,
confounded their language, so that one could not understand another.
Thus they left off building the tower, and that is why it is called
Babel. Then God scattered them abroad to re-people the earth.

[Illustration: BUILDING THE TOWER OF BABEL.]




LOT'S FLIGHT FROM SODOM.


In Palestine, the land in which Jesus dwelt when He was upon earth,
there is an inland sea, called the Dead Sea. Its waters are very salt,
and no trees grow upon its shores. Many long years before the birth of
Jesus Christ, two cities stood upon the plain which the waters of the
Dead Sea now cover. These cities were named Sodom and Gomorrah. Their
inhabitants were very wicked, so God destroyed their cities by raining
brimstone and fire upon them.

Before God destroyed these cities, He sent two angels to Lot,
Abraham's nephew, who dwelt in Sodom, commanding him to flee from it,
taking his family with him. The angels hastened him, saying, "Arise,
take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be
consumed in the iniquity of the city." Then the angels took all four
by the hand and led them out, and said to Lot, "Escape for thy life;
look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to
the mountain, lest thou be consumed."