Abraham: "Peradventure there be ten pious in each of the four cities,
then forgive Zoar in Thy grace, for its sins are not so great in number
as the sins of the others."
God granted his petition, yet Abraham continued to plead, and he asked
whether God would not be satisfied if there were but thirty righteous,
ten in each of the three larger cities, and would pardon the two
smaller ones, even though there were no righteous therein, whose merits
would intercede for them. This, too, the Lord granted, and furthermore
He promised not to destroy the cities if but twenty righteous were
found therein; yes, God conceded that He would preserve the five cities
for the sake of ten righteous therein.[164] More than this Abraham did
not ask, for he knew that eight righteous ones, Noah and his wife, and
his three sons and their wives, had not sufficed to avert the doom of
the generation of the flood, and furthermore he hoped that Lot, his
wife, and their four daughters, together with the husbands of their
daughters, would make up the number ten. What he did not know was that
even the righteous in these sin-laden cities, though better than the
rest, were far from good.[165]
Abraham did not cease to pray for the deliverance of the sinners even
after the Shekinah had removed from him. But his supplications and his
intercessions were in vain.[166] For fifty-two years God had warned the
godless; He had made mountains to quake and tremble. But they hearkened
not unto the voice of admonition. They persisted in their sins, and
their well-merited punishment overtook them.[167] God forgives all
sins, only not an immoral life. And as all these sinners led a life of
debauchery, they were burnt with fire.[168]