First mentioned as landmarks on the Canaanite border (10:19). Lot drifts toward them by stages in ch. 13 (their coming ruin already named there, 13:10), the city's wickedness is stated outright at 13:13, in ch. 18 their 'outcry' reaches heaven and Abraham argues the Judge of all the earth down to ten righteous — and in ch. 19 the sentence falls: sulfur and fire out of the heavens, the cities and the whole plain overthrown (19:24-29); 'like the overthrow of Sodom' is the prophets' byword for total ruin ever after. Expedition Bible's Joel Kramer identifies the site as Tall el-Hammam, in the northern Jordan Valley — burned, sulfur-rich debris there matches all four destroyed cities of the plain, while a fifth sample from Zoar's presumed site, spared in the account, did not burn.