The chief of the cities of the plain by the Dead Sea, a byword for wickedness, destroyed by fire and sulphur from Jehovah in the days of Abraham and Lot (Genesis 18-19). LOT escapes; his wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt; and Moab and Ammon are born of the aftermath (Genesis 19:37-38). Ever after, Sodom is Scripture's shorthand for judgment — the prophets invoke it, Jesus warns that towns rejecting him will fare worse than it (Matthew 10:15), and Jude sets it among his examples, 'undergoing the punishment of eternal fire' (1:7).