For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
Parallel translations
- WEB for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown so great before Yahweh that Yahweh has sent us to destroy it.”
- KJV For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.
- BSB because we are about to destroy this place. For the outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that He has sent us to destroy it.”
- NASB for we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the Lord that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
- NLT For we are about to destroy this city completely. The outcry against this place is so great it has reached the Lord, and he has sent us to destroy it.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The angels announce they will destroy Sodom because of its great outcry before the LORD.
Overview
The destruction is grounded in the cry of the city's sin reaching God, confirming the earlier verdict (18:20). The angels act as agents of divine justice, not arbitrary force. This sober warning shows that God's patience has limits and his judgment is certain.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Gen 18:20Yahweh said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous,
- Jude 1:7Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, having, in the same way as these, given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.
- Matt 13:49–50So will it be in the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked from among the righteous,
- Acts 12:23Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he didn’t give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.
- Rev 16:1–12I heard a loud voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God on the earth!”
- Rom 3:8–9Why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil, that good may come?” Those who say so are justly condemned.
- Matt 13:41–42The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his Kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and those who do iniquity,
- Jas 5:4Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.
- Isa 37:36Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
- Isa 3:11Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them; for the deeds of his hands will be paid back to him.
- Ezek 9:5–6To the others he said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him, and strike. Don’t let your eye spare, neither have pity.
- 1 Chr 21:15–16God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, “It is enough. Now withdraw your hand.” Yahweh’s angel was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
- Isa 36:10Have I come up now without Yahweh against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.”’”
- Gen 13:13Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against Yahweh.
- Ps 11:5–6Yahweh examines the righteous, but the wicked and him who loves violence his soul hates.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 19:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.