It's great to be back home in California. Yesterday's travel prevented access. The plane had wi-fi, but the iphone didn't have enough juice, sorry about that!
Back to the Bible!
Abraham seems to understand that these three visitors are very special and goes all out to see to their comfort. He was right because one of them was the Lord. The Lord tells Abraham that he'll return in a year and when he does Sarah and Abraham will be parents. Sarah hears this and laughs at the Lord! The Lord asks "Why did Sarah laugh?" Sarah lies and says she didn't, but the Lord says he heard her. So not only does the Lord see us, he hears us too. And he forgives us even if we lie to him.
Turns out that the Lord is on a recon mission to check out Sodom and Gomorrah, because he heard that they were really wicked. He brought two angels with him. The Lord stays with Abraham and the two angels go on down to Soddom. Abraham is concerned that there will be good people destroyed along with the evil. So he starts asking the Lord if he would spare the city if there were 50 good people in it. The Lord says he would spare the city for 50 good people. Then they have the same discussion for 45 good people, 40 good people, 30 good people, 20 good people, and finally 10 good people. If there had been 10 good people in Sodom it wouldn't have been destroyed! After that the Lord leaves and Abraham goes back home.
So by now the the two angels arrive in Sodom and are greeted by Lot who lives there. He offers them hospitality and insists that they stay with him in his home. Then things start to get really creepy. All the men in Sodom gather outside of Lot's house demanding to have sex with the two new guys in Lot's house. Even creepier (to me) Lot tells them they can have his two unmarried daughters instead of the two new guys. The crown isn't satisfied and starts to break down the door. The two guys who are really angels, make them all blind. The angels tell Lot to take his family and run to the hills and don't look back. Lot says he can't get all the way to the hills that fast, but he can get to another little town, so the angels say they won't do anything until he is safe.
So Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed. Lot's wife looked back and is turned into a block of salt. Abraham could see down into the valley where Sodom and Gomorrah were burning "like a flaming furnace."
This chapter is full of weirdness! Lot is scared for his safety and takes his two daughters to a cave in the hills. They want to have babies, so they get their father drunk and sleep with him and get pregnant. The older daughter has a son she names Moab, the younger has a son named Benammi. They are the ancestors of the Moabites, and the Ammonites.
Chapter 20 has Abraham telling people Sarah is his sister again. King Abimelech has a dream and God tells him what's really going on. King Abimelech asks Abraham why he lied and Abraham says he was making assumtions about what people would do. All that ever does is prevent communication. So the King gives Sarah back to Abraham as well as sheep, cattle and slaves and 1000 pieces of silver.
So in Chapter 21 Sarah has the baby. God keeps his promises. Sarah gets jealous of Hagar and Ishmael again and has Abraham kick them out. They wander around and run out of water, which is a really bad thing in the desert. Then while Hagar is crying and angel speaks to her and tells her "Don't be afraid". Then God lets her see a well and she gets water for her and her son. He became an expert with his bow and arrows and married the Egyptian woman his mom chose for him.
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