Week of November 1, 2026

This Week in Sacred Scripture

 

GENESIS CHAPTERS 18, 19, AND 20 

 THE LORD’S VISITATION, THE PRAYER OF INTERCESSION, AND DELIVERANCE FROM SIN

 

(We are using the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible in this study)

The Bishop’s Teaching

Last week, we considered God’s covenant with Abraham, the promise of Isaac, and the obedience of faith. We followed the history of Sara and Agar and reflected upon the new life given to us through Holy Baptism.

 

Genesis 18, 19 and 20 continue this history. Abraham receives heavenly visitors, hears the promise concerning Sara renewed, and intercedes for Sodom. Lot is delivered from the destruction of the city. In Gerara, God protects Sara and commands Abimelech to restore her to her husband.

 

These chapters contain both consolation and difficult passages. We encounter prayer, divine judgment, human weakness, and the mercy that calls us away from sin. We must read the whole account carefully.

 

Let us ask for faith in God’s promises, perseverance in prayer for others, and the grace to respond promptly when He calls us to repentance.

 

1. READ

 

This week I ask you to read Genesis, chapters 18, 19 and 20 slowly. Notice the welcome offered to strangers, Abraham’s reverence in prayer, and God’s protection of those whom He delivers.

 

Genesis 18 opens with the Lord’s appearance to Abraham at Mambre. Abraham sees three men and hastens to welcome them. He offers water, rest, and food, and Sara helps prepare the meal.

 

The promise of a son is renewed. Sara laughs within herself because she and Abraham are old. The Lord asks: “Is there anything hard to God?” (Genesis 18:14).

 

Pause here. God’s promise does not depend upon what Abraham and Sara can accomplish by their own strength. His word calls for faith even when its fulfillment exceeds human expectation.

 

The chapter then turns toward Sodom. The Lord speaks of its grievous sin, and Abraham intercedes, asking whether the city will be spared for the sake of the just. His petitions proceed from fifty just persons to ten.

 

Notice the humility joined to his persistence. He acknowledges that he is dust and ashes, yet continues to plead. He seeks mercy for a city whose wickedness he does not excuse.

 

When Scripture describes God as going down to see, it speaks in language accommodated to human understanding. God already knows all things; His judgment is never the result of incomplete knowledge.

 

Genesis 19 begins with Lot receiving two angels into his home. Men of the city surround the house and demand the visitors for sexual abuse. Lot protests, but then offers his daughters to the crowd. The angels intervene and protect him.

 

Lot’s proposal must not be treated as an example of hospitality to follow. Protecting guests cannot justify surrendering innocent daughters to violence. A good purpose does not make an evil choice permissible.

 

The angels urge Lot and his family to leave. When he delays, they take them by the hand and lead them out. Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed. Lot’s wife looks back against the command given and becomes a pillar of salt.

 

Genesis 19:29 connects Lot’s deliverance with God’s remembrance of Abraham.  Return to the preceding chapter and consider the place of intercession in this rescue.

 

The final passage recounts the incest committed by Lot’s daughters after making their father drunk. The text states that he was unaware of their lying with him. Their sons become the ancestors of Moab and Ammon.

 

This account records grave disorder; it does not establish a permission to imitate it. Scripture does not conceal the sins found within the families whose history it recounts.

 

Read those passages soberly. Ask for protection for the vulnerable and for the grace never to excuse wrongdoing because we are afraid.

 

Genesis 20 takes us to Gerara. Abraham calls Sara his sister, and Abimelech takes her. Before he touches her, God warns him in a dream that she is married. God acknowledges the king’s ignorance and declares that He has restrained him from sin.

 

Abimelech must now restore Sara. Abraham explains that he feared being killed because of her and that she is indeed his sister through his father, though also his wife.

 

Keep both parts of this explanation in view. The kinship Abraham states is real according to the text, but the king had not been told the marriage that made taking Sara unlawful. The passage requires careful attention to what was said and what was concealed.

 

God protects Sara, commands her return, and identifies Abraham as a prophet who will pray for Abimelech. The chapter ends with that prayer and the healing of the household.

 

Notice that God’s warning calls for a concrete response. Once Abimelech knows the truth, he must act upon it.

 

2. WHAT THE CHURCH TEACHES

 

Abraham’s prayer helps us understand intercession: bringing the needs of others before God.

 

The Catechism presents his welcome at Mambre and his pleading for others as expressions of a heart formed by faith and drawn into God’s compassion (see section 2571). We, too, are called to pray for people beyond our immediate household, including those whose conduct causes us sorrow.

 

Such prayer must seek their true good. To pray for someone living in grave sin is to ask for the grace of conversion, forgiveness, and salvation. Love does not require us to call evil good.

 

The judgment upon Sodom requires plain teaching. The men demand other males for sexual violation. The passage concerns sodomy and attempted rape, grave sins against the order established by God. It cannot truthfully be reduced to a lesson about failing to welcome strangers. The Church’s catechetical tradition numbers the sin of the Sodomites among the sins that cry to heaven (see Catechism, section 1867).

 

The Church teaches that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, contrary to the natural law, and gravely sinful. They cannot be approved under any circumstances. Their sinfulness does not depend upon the presence of violence; consent cannot make such acts morally lawful. Persons who experience these temptations are called to chastity, prayer, and sacramental grace. They must be treated with respect and charity, without unjust discrimination (see sections 2357-2359).

 

Other passages of Scripture also condemn Sodom’s pride and neglect of the poor. These additional sins do not cancel or explain away the sexual wickedness shown in Genesis 19. We must receive the whole testimony of Scripture.

 

Lot’s offer of his daughters brings another principle into view. The Church teaches that we may never choose an intrinsically evil act as a means to a good end. Fear and difficult circumstances may affect personal responsibility, but they cannot make an evil act good (see sections 1753-1756).

 

This principle applies equally to the daughters’ later actions. The desire for children cannot justify incest. God’s providence continues to work through human history without making Him the author or approver of human sin.

 

Finally, Abimelech’s response helps us distinguish ignorance from refusal. He initially does not know that Sara is Abraham’s wife. After God’s warning, he is commanded to restore her. When we recognize that something in our lives is wrong, knowledge must lead to amendment.

 

Ask God for a conscience willing to receive correction. Pray for the courage to repair harm and fulfill the duties the truth makes clear.

 

3. SCRIPTURE ILLUMINATES SCRIPTURE

 

Read Hebrews 13:1-3 alongside Abraham’s welcome in Genesis 18.

 

The Apostle joins brotherly love to hospitality and recalls that some have entertained angels without knowing it. He also directs attention to prisoners and the afflicted. The welcome given at the tent of Abraham helps us examine the practical generosity of our own homes and hearts.

 

Then read Luke 1:26-38.

 

The announcement of Isaac’s birth prepares us to recognize a greater announcement: the coming of Our Savior. Sara conceives in her old age through God’s power; the Blessed Virgin Mary conceives the Son of God by the Holy Ghost while remaining a virgin. These are distinct miracles within the one history of salvation.

 

Mary receives God’s word with faith and obedience. Ask her intercession when fear or discouragement makes it difficult to trust what God has revealed.

 

Next, read Ezechiel 16:49-50 and Jude 1:7.

 

Ezechiel describes Sodom’s pride, abundance, idleness, neglect of the needy, and abominations. St. Jude expressly recalls its fornication and pursuit of other flesh, presenting its punishment as a warning. These passages belong together. Neglect of the poor was real; so was the sin against nature. Neither truth may be used to suppress the other.

 

Read II Peter 2:6-9.

 

St. Peter presents Sodom’s destruction as a warning and speaks of Lot as distressed by the lawlessness around him. The passage teaches God’s power to deliver the godly and the certainty of his judgment. Its praise of Lot does not make every action recorded of him an example to follow.

 

Then read Luke 17:28-33.

 

Our Lord Himself recalls the days of Lot and tells His disciples to remember Lot’s wife. The ordinary activities of life continued until judgment came. His warning calls us to vigilance and to a heart ready to obey, rather than one so absorbed in earthly concerns that it refuses His summons.

 

Finally, read I Timothy 2:1-6 and Hebrews 7:24-25.

 

St. Paul urges prayer for all people and teaches that Jesus Christ is the one Mediator between God and men. Hebrews directs us to Our Savior’s enduring priesthood and intercession. Our prayers for others depend upon Him and participate in His saving work.

 

4. THE FATHERS

 

The Fathers help us receive both the encouragement and the warnings of these chapters.

 

St. Clement of Rome recalls Abraham’s faith and hospitality in his First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 10. In chapter 11, he turns to Lot’s hospitality and deliverance, while presenting Lot’s wife as a warning against a divided and disobedient heart.

 

There are practical lessons for Christian life: welcome those in need, trust God, and persevere in obedience.

 

St. Augustine discusses the visitors at Mambre in The City of God, Book XVI, chapter 29. He understands them as angels through whom God made His presence known.

 

In chapter 30, Augustine explicitly identifies sodomy as a vice that had become customary in Sodom. He reads the city’s punishment as a warning of the judgment to come. He also applies the prohibition against looking back to Christians who must not return in heart to the sinful life they have renounced.

 

Our Baptism calls for that continuing fidelity. When an old sin attracts us again, we need prayer, vigilance, and renewed cooperation with grace.

 

Augustine also addresses Lot’s offer of his daughters in Against Lying, section 21. He refuses to make that action a rule for us to imitate: fear of another person’s sin cannot authorize our own wrongdoing.

 

In Against Faustus, Book XXII, section 45, he distinguishes the recording of the daughters’ incest from approval of it. This distinction is essential when reading difficult biblical histories. The holiness of Sacred Scripture does not require us to defend every deed it recounts.

 

5. FULFILLED IN CHRIST

 

What do Genesis 18, 19 and 20 have to do with Jesus Christ?

 

The promise concerning Isaac preserves the line through which God prepares the coming of the Redeemer. The child promised to Abraham and Sara belongs to a history whose fulfillment reaches far beyond their household.

 

The Catechism identifies Abraham’s hospitality at Mambre as foreshadowing the annunciation of the true Son of the promise (see section 2571). God’s visitation draws us onward toward the Incarnation, when the eternal Son truly assumes our human nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

Abraham’s intercession also prepares us to contemplate Our Savior. Abraham pleads for others as a servant of God. Jesus Christ, true God and true man, offers Himself for our salvation and lives forever to intercede for us.

 

We approach the Father through Him. When we pray for the conversion of someone we love, we place that person before the mercy of the Redeemer who died for sinners.

 

The rescue of Lot helps us consider our own need for deliverance. We cannot free ourselves from sin by our own unaided strength. God’s grace precedes and assists our response. His mercy calls us to leave behind what destroys the life of the soul.

 

Name honestly whatever needs to change. It may be a habit of impurity, dishonesty, cruelty, resentment, or neglect of prayer. Ask for the grace to take the next necessary step, including sacramental Confession when we have fallen into grave sin.

 

When you assist at Holy Mass, bring before Our Lord those for whom you are praying. Unite your petitions to His sacrifice. Ask for their conversion and for your own, remembering that intercession must never become an occasion for pride.

 

Prepare for Holy Communion with repentance, faith, and reverence. Ask Our Savior to strengthen your charity and give you a heart that responds willingly to His word.

 

Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, may we learn to welcome God’s will, pray faithfully for others, and persevere in the grace He gives.

Read

Read Genesis chapters 18, 19 and 20.

Read alongside them:

• Hebrews 13:1-3
• Luke 1:26-38
• Ezechiel 16:49-50
• Jude 1:7
• II Peter 2:6-9
• Luke 17:28-33
• I Timothy 2:1-6
• Hebrews 7:24-25

 

CARRY THESE WORDS WITH YOU

“Is there anything hard to God?” (Genesis 18:14)

 

REMEMBER

God is faithful to His promises, just in His judgments, and merciful toward those He calls to repentance. Through Jesus Christ, we receive the grace to turn from sin, persevere in prayer, and seek the salvation of others.

Reflect

Abraham welcomes the visitors generously. Is there someone whose need I have repeatedly passed by? What practical act of assistance can I offer this week?

 

Sara hears a promise that exceeds her expectations. Do I receive God’s revealed word with faith? Have I confused trust in Him with certainty that He must grant the particular outcome I desire?

 

Abraham pleads for Sodom. Do I pray for people whose conduct troubles me? Do I ask for their conversion with humility, remembering my own need for mercy?

 

Lot delays when told to leave. What act of repentance have I postponed? Is there an occasion of sin that I continue to approach despite knowing its danger?

 

Lot’s wife looks back. Am I nourishing an attachment to something I have renounced? What help do I need to persevere?

 

Lot proposes an evil means to protect his guests. Do I excuse dishonesty, cruelty, or another wrong because I hope to obtain a good result?

 

Abimelech acts upon God’s warning. When I am corrected, do I listen? Is there harm I need to repair or something I must restore?

 

This week, pray each day for one person’s conversion, offer one practical kindness to someone in need, and take one concrete step away from a recurring occasion of sin.

 

Pray

Almighty and eternal Father,

 

You welcomed Abraham into friendship with You, renewed Your promise to
Sara, and heard the prayer offered for others. Teach us to receive Your word with reverence and to trust Your wisdom.

 

Increase our faith when Your promises exceed our understanding. Preserve us from making our own expectations the measure of Your goodness.

 

Give us generous hearts toward strangers, the lonely, and the afflicted. Help us to recognize the needs that You place within our reach and to answer them with practical charity.

 

Teach us to intercede faithfully. We place before You our families, those who have wandered from the Faith, those living in grave sin, and those who have no one to pray for them.

 

Grant them the grace of repentance and conversion. Preserve us from contempt and from the pride that forgets our own sins.

 

Deliver us from impurity, violence, dishonesty, and hardness of heart. Protect children and all who are vulnerable. Give courage and wisdom to those responsible for their safety.

 

Never allow fear or the desire for a good result to lead us to choose what is evil. Form our consciences according to Your commandments and strengthen us to obey them.

 

When You call us to leave sin behind, help us to respond promptly. Break the attachments that draw us back toward what harms our souls.

 

Give us humility to accept correction, sincerity in Confession, and determination to repair the wrongs we have done.

 

Deepen our love for Our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and Mediator. Unite our prayers to His intercession and our offerings to His sacrifice in the Holy Mass.

 

Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, help us to persevere in faith, hope, and charity. Bring us at last to the everlasting joy of Your presence.

 

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Next Week

Genesis Chapters 21, 22 and 23

The Promised Son, the Test of Faith, and the Promised Land