Lord insisted, "Nay, but thou didst laugh." And this incident broke up the
party. The men rose and "looked toward Sodom": and Abraham strolled with
them, to show them the way. And then the "Lord" debated with himself
whether to make a confidant of Abraham touching his resolution to destroy
Sodom utterly. And finally he decided that he would, "because the cry of
Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous."
Whereupon Abraham intervened, and an argument ensued, and at length God
admitted that he had been too hasty and promised to think the matter over.
And finally, when "the Lord" had reduced the number of righteous for whom
the city should be saved to ten, Abraham allowed him to go "his way ...
and Abraham returned to his place."

In the evening of the same day two angels came to Sodom, who met Lot at
the gate, and Lot took them to his house and made them a feast and they
did eat. Then it happened that the mob surrounded Lot's house and demanded
that the strangers should be delivered up to them. But Lot successfully
defended them. And in the morning the angels warned Lot to escape, but Lot
hesitated, though finally he did escape to Zoar.

"Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from
the Lord out of heaven."

"And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood
before the Lord:

"And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the
plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke
of a furnace."

We must always remember, in trying to reconstruct the past, that these