Beloved Gomorrah by Justine Saracen

Author:Justine Saracen [Saracen, Justine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781602829015
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2013-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

This is the testimony of Astari, first daughter of Lot, who is kin to Abraham and the father of my child Moab. I swear before the One God it is the true account of the destruction of Gomorrah and our flight from it as God’s chosen family.

Gomorrah was a cheerful city of mixed peoples and their gods, though none but the family of Lot worshiped the One God. Lot was not a son of Gomorrah but wandered to the city on the plain from elsewhere, while my mother was native to the town and a follower of Anat. When she was given unto Lot as wife, she renounced that cult and took into her heart the One God.

For all that my father preached, the people remained indifferent to our God, yet Lot took great offense at theirs. His righteous anger waxed with his years and yet none would hear him. And so it came to pass that he spoke of a Reckoning, of the One God’s wrath toward the idolaters, and of His avenging angels. When we looked upon their work in the ashes of Sodom, we knew he spoke true.

And verily, after the ruin of Sodom, within the cycle of the moon, God’s angels came to Gomorrah. Lot met them at the gate and bade them come into his house. They entered in and spoke their names: Mesoch, Yassib, and Gebreel.

We knew for a certainty they were our special angels, for they spoke of Abraham, the head of our clan, and of his supplication to God to save us, the only righteous ones. My mother fell to trembling, and Gebreel, the fairest of the angels, cast a gentle eye upon her in her distress. It was as if God’s love was in his face and God’s wrath in the faces of the others.

While we prepared the evening bread, the men tarried in the other room whispering among themselves. I yearned to listen, for surely the matter touched us deeply, but alas, though our mother wept, our duty was to serve the men their supper.

When we sat at table breaking bread, the people of Gomorrah came unto us with great vexation. Men and women of the city and the elders with their wives and boys. They feared the angels, who had prophesied doom already at the gate, and demanded to confront them. But Lot’s heart was hardened, and he mocked the people from the doorway.

“This is a house of true believers, where none but the righteous shall come in. Here, satisfy your appetites on maids who have known no men, for it is better you violate their innocence than that you molest an angel of God.” Thus saying, he thrust my sister and me into their midst.

“Violate? Molest?” One of the elders laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Wherefore do you speak of molestation? We have no interest in your daughters, but only in those who call themselves angels and who entreat heaven for our ruin. Let them come before us and explain themselves.

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